Plagued
by Judah Jones
Summary: When the dead walk, the living run. Surviving isn't as simple as it appears on t.v. Monsters can be human, too, and the worst monster of all is the one in the mirror. This is so much more than a Daryl Dixon love story. Uniquely canon for anyone who misses the early days of TWD.
1. Mockernut Hickory

**AN:** I started this story ages ago, like years, and since I've been catching up with the newer seasons of TWD, I started missing the OG crew and the earlier seasons, so I came back to this. I've written up into the second season, so I can promise pretty steady updates for awhile :)

Honestly, Daryl Dixon deserves a woman who equals his badass awesomeness, and so I've tried to give him one. Reviews are always appreciated. I gave up on this story last time because it didn't receive a great reception, but I'm really proud of it and, if you stick through, there'll be some good twists and turns. It's a canon-fic, but I've tried to still make it original and not overload you with repetitions of things you already know from watching the show.

Anyways, I hope you enjoy. I'll be posting the first few chapters, so you can get into it, and then will try to post at least once a week. Here goes...

* * *

Somewhere, children were laughing. Jo burrowed deeper into her sleeping bag. She felt like an enchilada baking in the oven, but she'd rather be cooked and eaten than hear the children laughing, or whoever was whistling off-key, or the threads of passing conversation. _Shut-up, shut-up._ All she wanted was to sleep. When she did, though, she dreamt of her mother's corpse, and then she woke, wondering if the walkers had forced their way into the house yet.

"You're going to miss breakfast." Amy poked her head into the tent. "Morales made eggs. They're almost gone."

"Powdered?"

"They aren't so bad with hot sauce," said Amy. She gave the end of Jo's sleeping bag a good shake before exiting the tent. "Better get a move on if you want to go fishing today."

Jo did not want to go fishing. What else was there to do, though, other than bake? She surfaced with her dirty blonde hair in tangles. She'd been wearing the same clothes for two days, but didn't bother changing now. Dale waved down to her from the roof of the RV as she dragged her feet across the scrubby camp to the firepit.

"Morning," said Morales, passing her a plate of eggs. Jo nodded as she took the plate. She plopped down next to Amy on the ground. Really, the eggs weren't so bad. She had eaten much worse. Lately, she just couldn't keep anything down. Her stomach began to churn after a few bites. She set the plate on the grass and stood.

"I'll meet you at the quarry," she said to Amy, before hurrying away. She stopped just outside of camp, doubled over, and wretched into a patch of scraggly bushes.

"Get it all out," said Shane, sneaking up behind her. Jo took a deep breath, straightened up, and faced him.

"Powdered eggs," she muttered, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

Shane combed his fingers through his hair. He did that a lot now. No one said it in so many words, but he was their leader, and the stress was more likely to kill him than the walkers. "I saw Lee down at the quarry yesterday. How's he doing?"

"Ask him yourself," said Jo. She didn't want to talk about her baby brother right then, with the sour aftertaste of vomit on her tongue.

"How're you?" said Shane.

She wanted to talk even less about herself. So she took a cigarette from the crushed pack in her back pocket and lit one instead of answering.

"Thought I might go hunting," said Shane. "Want to come?"

"Got plans," said Jo, blowing smoke from the corner of her mouth. If Shane Walsh was going hunting, then it was official; the apocalypse was upon them.

"Hot date?" he said.

"Yeah." She went with the joke for old time's sake. "The Asian kid is taking me square dancing."

Shane chuckled. He looked to camp. Miranda and Lori were scrubbing the breakfast dishes, while the children played tic-tac-toe in the dirt nearby, and the Asian kid helped Carol hang the wet laundry from a line of fishing wire strung between two pines.

"They're good people," said Shane. "The Asian kid, his name is Glenn. Maybe you could try talking to him."

"And maybe you can start a dating website," said Jo. "Call it Match Made in Hell."

"Don't get smart. Look, all I'm saying is, it's not good to spend so much time on your own."

Jo rolled her eyes. She knew what he was saying. The same thing he'd been saying to her since she was a kid. Don't brick yourself up. Go out and meet people. Live your life. Well, most people sucked, most people she regretted meeting, and it was hard to live your life at the end of the world. "Don't worry," she said. "I'll join y'all tonight for the campfire sing-along. Kumbaya my Lord, all that shit." She stepped over the remains of her breakfast and left Shane standing alone with his good intentions.

Jo set off along the dirt path that led to the quarry. She cursed every time she stumbled over a root. These were not her woods. She didn't know them. Among these trees, she would not find the old pine she'd carved her name into, or the tree she'd fallen from a thousand times before finally learning to climb, or the one outside her bedroom window that she used to sneak down. She stopped at a mockernut hickory, leapt for the lowest branch, and left the ground. She kept going, up and up, until she could go no further. It was a good climbing tree with thick limbs. She sat with her back against the trunk, straddling a crooked limb, and looked down.

The ground was gone. Jo couldn't see it through the leaves. There were no walkers, no refugee camp, no world at all. How far had the virus spread? Were there still people across the ocean going about their daily business? Were light bulbs burning, somewhere? Were telephones ringing, calls going to voicemail, planes in the sky?

No. The virus was everywhere. Otherwise, why hadn't they been rescued yet? Shane would remind her that not everything was gone. There was the Asian kid, Amy, and the others. There was her brother, a tent, powdered eggs. Who needed electricity, running water, or mothers?

Jo didn't make it to the quarry. Night was falling by the time she came down from the tree. Her back, legs, and rear were sore, but it was nice. A familiar pain, comforting. She used to hide in the trees from her father. He never once thought to look up.

"Where were you?" said Amy as soon as Jo joined her by the firepit. "I waited all day."

"Jolene's a lone wolf," said Shane. "Don't got time for the likes of us."

"Drop it," said Lori, nudging him in the ribs. "People need their space."

"Well," said Amy, arms crossed, eyes narrowed. "People should tell other people if they're going to bail."

"Fish will be there tomorrow," said Jo. She was distracted by a glimpse of Lee slipping into their tent. He was so thin. Had he eaten today? Then she noticed there was a new tent neighboring the one she shared with her brother. The new tent was shabby and patched, falling in on itself. A man emerged. Keeping his back to camp, he strode to a beat-up blue truck. Jo watched him retrieve a lumpy, black bag from the front seat and sling it over his shoulder.

"Right," said Shane, also watching the man. "New comers, brothers, Merle and Daryl Dixon."

"I don't know how I feel about them," said Lori.

"We need the manpower," said Shane.

Lori's eyes darted to the shabby tent. "All the same, I don't want them around Carl."

When she left, Shane watched her. He looked to Jo after a moment. "I'll move your tent, if you want," he said. "They do seem like a rough sort."

"Met my fair share of those. We'll be fine."

"Well, if you change your mind…" Shane smothered a yawn. "I should hit the sack." He left, but didn't go to his tent. He stood outside of Lori's for awhile, speaking to her through the canvas, until she let him in.

"Is there something going on between them?" said Amy.

Jo shrugged. Whatever was happening between Lori and Shane was none of her business. They were each just trying to fill a void and she had her own abyss to deal with.

"So what's your story?" said Amy. Jo picked up a twig and began breaking it into smaller pieces. She didn't answer. "I mean, I never see you and your brother together. You don't talk to each other.

"Yeah, well..." said Jo, shrugging again. Lee had his reasons for not speaking. Amy wouldn't understand. "Family is complicated." She tossed the bits of twig into the fire and watched them burn quick. "Look, I'm sorry for ditching you. I wasn't good with people before everything went to shit. Guess I'm not much better at it now."

"You'll learn," said Amy. She pressed her shoulder against Jo's, before going over to Andrea and Jim by the RV. Shane was still in Lori's tent. The Asian kid was sitting by himself. He didn't have any friends or family. Maybe she ought to take Shane's advice and go talk to him. But what to say? Hey, I'm Jo. Want to be friends? Given the current state of the world, the introduction seemed absurd.

Jo thought about joining Lee in their tent. She thought about trying to break the silence between them. They could push their sleeping bags together and she'd tell him ghost stories like she used to. Only Mama's corpse would lie between them. She stretched out on the ground instead, folded her arms under her head, and closed her eyes.

She slept. She dreamed of walkers roaming the dark woods of her childhood. Lee was in the treetops, chanting, "Lone wolf, dead wolf."

* * *

Jo trailed her hand through the cool, green water. Wispy clouds fell apart against a bright, blue sky and she was reminded of cotton candy, of the county fair she'd taken Lee to forever ago.

"What are you thinking about?" said Amy.

"Nothing."

"You were smiling."

"Do you like cotton candy?" said Jo.

"I'm more of a snow-cone girl," said Amy. She pushed back Dale's floppy fishing hat. It kept falling over her eyes. She reeled in her hook. The bait was gone, but there was no fish. Jo brought in her own line. No bait, no fish. She plucked a fat worm from the tin pail at her feet. The worms themselves didn't bother her any. God made worms, worms don't bite. It was getting the wriggly suckers on the hook that she struggled with. She jabbed at the worm; it curled around her finger. She gave up and flung it overboard.

"I'll stick to foraging," she declared.

Amy cast her line. "Suit yourself."

Done with the fish, Jo was still in no hurry to row back. The shore was hazy in the distance. She tried to determine which little, black dot was her brother.

"What happened to you guys?" said Amy. "To your brother?"

Jo scooped up a handful of water and let it trickle through her fingers. "Why do you want to know?"

"On the road, after we found you passed out, you said some things while you were unconscious," said Amy. "You kept asking who would bury your mother."

"She's dead," muttered Jo. "Told you that."

"You can talk to me, if you need to," said Amy.

"Nothing to talk about. It doesn't matter what happened. Look around. The world was shit before and now...What's the point? What are we even doing here?"

"We're making do."

Jo sighed. She looked back to shore. There was one black dot standing apart from the rest. If she had anything to bargain, she'd bet it was her brother. "What if I don't want to make do? What if I don't deserve to be here?"

Do what you have to do, that's what she had said to Shane the night all hell broke loose. Do what you have to do. She hadn't even tried to save her mother. She could have refused to leave without her, but the awful truth was that she'd wanted to leave for so long. A worm crawled across the toe of her boot. She shook it off and squashed it.

"Whether you deserve to be here or not," said Amy, "you are." Her hook snared against the side of the boat. She wrenched it free of the wood and brought it in. No fish. "Some days they just don't bite."

"Wish the same was true of walkers," said Jo. She spotted one stumbling along the top of the quarry wall and watched as it lost its footing. The walker's clothes billowed as it fell.

"Think they can swim?" said Amy, after the walker hit the water.

"I'd rather not find out," said Jo. "C'mon."

They rowed to shore in silence. Andrea, with her canvas pants rolled to the knees, waded out to meet them. "Any luck?" she said, taking hold of the prow to keep the boat steady while Amy and Jo leapt overboard.

"Nope," said Amy.

"We're running out of food," said Andrea. After they pushed the boat ashore, Jo stopped listening to the conversation. She looked for Lee. There he was and, for once, he wasn't alone. He was talking to a man she didn't recognize. "Who is that?"

Andrea glanced over her shoulder at Lee and the man. "Merle Dixon," she said, scowling.

"One of the new guys?" said Amy, looking now too. "What's he doing with your brother?"

"I'd watch out," said Andrea. "Dixon has been a pain in the ass all day. He's the worst sort of racist, junkie redneck."

Jo kept watching her brother and Merle Dixon as the sisters resumed their discussion of the group's dwindling food supply. She thought she saw Merle take something from his pocket and slip it into Lee's hand. Then again, maybe it was a trick of the light bouncing off of the water.

* * *

Mama was kneeling by a river. When Jo called out to her, she turned around, wringing blood from a t-shirt, and smiled.

"What are you doing?" shouted Jo from the opposite bank.

"Washing your clothes, silly," said Mama, squeezing out more blood.

Jo woke to blinding light. "Shine that damn thing somewhere else," she grumbled.

"Sorry," said Glenn, lowering the flashlight. His eyes darted nervously, back and forth, beneath the tattered brim of a red baseball cap.

"Well, what do you want?"

"T-Dog sent me," he said. "You're supposed to take watch."

"Shit, am I late?"

Glenn nodded.

"Shit." Jo scrambled out of her sleeping bag. Glenn's mouth popped open as she bent to retrieve her jeans, tangled and discarded on the ground.

"Catching flies over there?" said Jo. He shut his mouth and looked away.

"I'll leave the light," he said, setting the flashlight down, before fleeing. Jo pulled her belt tight and glanced to Lee's corner of the tent. His sleeping bag was zipped and empty. If she was late for her watch, then it must be after midnight. Where the hell was he?

T-Dog was pacing the moonlit roof of the RV with a rifle across his back. Jo retreated back into the tent and reached under Lee's pillow to check if he'd taken the knife with him. Sure enough, the knife wasn't there, but something crinkled at her touch. She took a makeshift baggie out from under the pillow. It had been made by melting the ends together of the cellophane wrapping from a pack of cigarettes. A dozen or so multi-colored pills rattled around inside.

Jo crushed the makeshift baggie, pills included, in her fist. She had forgotten that T-Dog was waiting. Her only coherent thought, amidst a rush of red hot fury, was to choke the life out of Merle Dixon. His brother was sitting cross-legged outside of their tent. As Jo marched towards him, he looked up from sharpening his knife and narrowed his eyes at her. "What you want?"

Jo brushed past him as if he weren't there. "Bitch, you can't go in there," said Daryl, leaping to his feet. Too late. She was already inside and there was Merle, passed out on his back, snoring like an avalanche. The sight of him disgusted her. She flung the flashlight at his head. Merle reared up, swinging his fists.

"You motherfucking asshole," cried Jo, flinging the baggie of pills at him.

"Good morning to you, too, sweetheart," said Merle. Jo drew back her foot and plunged it between his ribs. She went to kick him again. This time Merle caught her ankle. Her chin broke her fall. Soon Dixon had her pinned.

"Easy now," he said.

Jo spat in his face.

"What the hell?" said Daryl, towering over them both. Merle glanced back when his brother spoke. Jo took the opportunity to wriggle her hands free and whip her fist across the side of his head. Merle toppled off of her.

"What the fuck do you think you're up to?" she said, staggering to her feet. "Giving my brother your shit?"

"I didn't give no one nothing," said Merle. "We made a fair trade. No refunds, so if he ain't happy with-"

"He's fifteen, you son of a bitch!"

"So?" said Merle. "Kid's having a rough time. Thought he needed to get away for a bit."

"You don't know anything." Jo took a step towards him. Daryl, knife in hand, blocked her path.

"Wouldn't do that if I were you," he said. Jo glared at the both of them. She was an inch away from bashing their redneck heads in with a rock, only she was out-numbered and weaponless.

"Stay away from my brother," she warned them. She stepped over Merle, shouldered past Daryl, and was ducking out of the tent when Merle spoke again.

"Don't know where you get off acting all high and mighty. Ain't like I done something you never have."

Jo froze mid-step.

"Oh yeah, sugar tits," Merle went on. "Your bro and I had a real nice heart-to-heart. It true you killed your own mama?"

Jo fell into an all-consuming rage. She flung herself at Merle Dixon. She punched every part of him she could reach, and it felt so good, letting go, like she was punching the whole damn world. No one knew the first thing about all she'd done, the sacrifices and choices she had made, for her brother.

Soon enough Daryl caught her around the waist and hefted her into the air. Merle stayed on the ground, blood gushing freely from his nose, laughing like a madman as Daryl dragged her outside. "Crazy bitch," he said, dumping her onto the ground. "Go on, get outta here."

Jo stood. She was prepared to fight him, to fight all of them, but right then Shane emerged from the woods. "What's going on?" he said, coming up to them, his eyes darting between them.

"Nothing," muttered Jo. She spun on her heels and stomped off. Shane trailed after her. As soon as they were inside her and Lee's tent, he repeated his question, "Better tell me now what that was."

"Nothing," she said again.

"Girl, it ain't nothing if you're picking fights with the Dixons when you're supposed to be on watch."

Shit. Jo remembered T-Dog was waiting for her. As the anger began to subside, the pain made itself known.

"Did he hit you?" said Shane.

"Merle," she hissed. Immediately, Shane went for the gun at his belt. "I went after him first, alright, so don't go shooting anybody."

"Why'd you do a stupid thing like that?" demanded Shane. Jo was spared having to answer by Lee's arrival. He stopped in the entryway like a deer caught in the headlights.

"I need to speak to my brother," said Jo, keeping her eyes on Lee.

Shane looked from one sibling to the other. "Alright," he finally said. "But I'm not done with you." As soon as he was gone, a heavy silence descended. Jo kept on glaring at her brother.

Finally, Lee spoke. "You found the pills."

"Yeah," said Jo. "I found them." She wanted to scream at him, for all the good it would do. "I don't want you hanging around the Dixons."

"You ain't my mother," said Lee. The words hit like he'd dropped a house on her. She was so sick of his silent treatment, of the accusations he flung at her with his eyes, of him. She was too sick to speak, so she slapped him. His head snapped to the side.

"If I see you with them again, we're leaving," she said. T-Dog was still waiting. She left Lee to nurse his wound. Hitting him was wrong. She never had before, not really, not to hurt him. The anger was gone by the time she reached the RV and the guilt was so much harder to bear.


	2. Butterfly Weed

The grass was damp beneath her bare feet, the sky clear gray. It had rained all morning and, for once, she hadn't woken to the smell of death and decay. After her watch ended, she'd lain awake in her sleeping bag, listening to the raindrops hit the canvas. Lee had snuck out at the break of dawn. She assumed he was at the quarry.

As she lay there, the lyrics to one of her father's favorite songs drifted through her head. _And when the flood is gone, we still remain._ Eventually, she braved leaving the tent. The song kept repeating as she sat by the fire and stirred last night's ashes with a stick. Amy and Andrea were arguing nearby, but not near enough to hear.

Shane sat down beside her. "What's with them?" she asked.

"Andrea volunteered for the Atlanta run," said Shane. "Amy's not happy. Can't say I blame her."

"Who else is going?"

Shane eyed her sideways. "Not you," he said. "So don't even think about it."

"I wasn't," said Jo. She wasn't in the mood to run off and play hero, especially when she knew quite well that she was the villian.

Shane counted off who all was going, "Jacqui, T-Dog, Morales, Glenn, and Merle."

"Merle?" She winced. Her whole body ached from last night. She hoped he was hurting just as much.

"I asked him to go," said Shane. Jo waited for a better explanation. She knew if she glowered at him long enough, then he'd give it to her, and he did. "I asked him about last night. Figured it might be easier than getting the truth out of you. Now I get why you went after him, but it was stupid, Jolene."

She winced again at the use of her full name. "Was I supposed to do nothing?"

"You should've come to me," said Shane.

"I ain't running to you every time I scrape my knee. You're not my damn father," she snapped. As soon as the words were out, she regretted them. They rang too closely to what Lee had said last night. Shane's shoulders drooped. He looked beat. He didn't deserve a lashing from her, not after everything he'd done. She didn't have parents anymore, but she still had him. "Sorry," she muttered.

"I care about you," said Shane. "You and Lee."

"I know." She went back to stirring the ashes. After a minute, she added, "Why did you ask Dixon to go?"

"Thought you could use some time to cool off," said Shane. "I don't like the Dixons much, either, but we need them. They can fight. Even better, they can hunt. You won't catch me turning that blessing away unless you and Amy think you can keep us all fed on fish."

"Not likely," said Jo.

Shane chuckled. Jo studied her bruised knuckles. She didn't regret going after Merle, but she saw Shane's side of it. She looked to the children doing their homework in the shade of an oak tree and remembered her threat to Lee about leaving if she caught him anywhere near the Dixons again. It was an empty one. Where would they go?

The RV door slammed behind Amy. Andrea lingered a moment before joining the other volunteers gathered by the cars. Merle Dixon caught Jo's gaze and flashed a cocky grin. She turned her head from him.

"Will you play nice?" said Shane.

"I'll try," said Jo. "No promises."

* * *

Amy refused to leave the RV.

"How is she?" said Jo, as she climbed the outside ladder to join Dale on the roof.

"The same," said Dale. "She still won't talk."

Andrea and the others had been gone half a day, leaving a solemn mood in their wake, and an unanswered question hanging over the camp. _Will they come back?_ "Glenn knows the city better than anyone," said Dale, as if convincing himself. "Andrea has her gun."

"Yeah, but does she know how to use it?" said Jo. Dale's brow furrowed under his floppy fishing hat.

From where they were standing, Jo could look straight down the cliff to the lake below. Heat shimmered on the water. Sweat collected in buckets between her skin and clothes. "I miss air conditioning," she said, fanning herself. "What do you miss the most?"

Dale considered the question for a moment. "This is our world now," he said. "It's beautiful, isn't it? When was the last time you just stood still and enjoyed the view?"

Jo shook her head. She couldn't deny that the sunlight on the water was beautiful, but that didn't change the fact that she was sweaty, and gross, and missed the feel of hot water running over her. "I'm going for a swim," she said. "Tell Amy if she ever comes out of hiding."

Jo slid down the ladder and landed with both feet in the dust. She found the path and made her way to the quarry. Day by day, this place was becoming more familiar. She stumbled less. She was growing attached despite her better judgment.

Jo scanned the shore to make sure she was alone, before she stripped down to her underwear, and set her clothes on a rock to keep them dry. She waded out until the water was up to her waist, and then filled her lungs with air, went under, let her body sink to the sandy bottom. Everything fell away. She stayed under as long as she could, until her lungs burned, before coming up.

She drifted on her back. If she kept still long enough, the fish came to nibble her toes. With the water rushing in her ears, she could forget for awhile, she let it all wash away, but the fantasy couldn't last forever. As she was wading back to shore, she caught sight of Daryl Dixon in the sand. He had four squirrels spread before him and another, half-skinned, in his lap. He looked up when she walked past. Their eyes met a second before he turned back to his task.

Play nice, Jo reminded herself. Once she was dressed, she went back to Daryl, not because any part of her wanted to be around him, but because she owed it to Shane to try. "It's easier if you wet them first," she said. Daryl ignored her. She sat down, drew one of the squirrels into her lap, and held out her hand for the knife. "Look, I'll show you how it's done."

"Don't need no crazy bitch telling me how to skin a squirrel," said Daryl.

"I'm only trying to help."

"Don't."

Jo watched him for awhile. He was doing it all wrong. She snatched up the knife when he set it down. "Just watch," she said, flipping the squirrel onto its back. She made an 1 ½ inch incision under the tail and four little cuts at the joint of each leg. Then, after dropping the knife, she stuck her fingers through the holes she had made, pushed the muscle and fat against the skin, and then stripped the pelt, just like taking off a glove. "That's how you skin a squirrel."

Daryl took his knife and went back to doing things his way.

"Suit yourself," said Jo.

"You hunt?" he said as she was standing up.

"Not really." She looked down to brush the sand from her jeans. "My dad did."

"He teach you how to skin a squirrel?"

"No." Jo shoved her hands deep into her pockets. "Mama taught me that."

"Hmph." Daryl stroked the squirrel's tail with the tip of the knife. "It true what Merle says? About what you did."

Jo turned her back on him. She didn't have to answer that question or any others. Everyone had something to regret, something to hide. It had always been that way, before and now.

* * *

Amy had left the RV by the time Jo returned. She was hanging the laundry.

"Guess what's for dinner?" said Jo, coming up behind her.

"Cotton candy," muttered Amy.

"Squirrel," said Jo.

Amy nodded. She bent down for the basket at her feet and plucked one of Andrea's shirts from the top. Her blue eyes glazed over with tears. Jo hated when people cried. She never knew what to do. "It's alright," she said, taking the shirt from Amy and pinning it to the line.

"What am I going to do if she doesn't come back?"

"She will," said Jo.

"She's all I have left." Amy touched her sister's shirt. "My birthday's coming up. She always misses it."

Things like birthdays didn't belong in the world anymore. Jo had already forgotten about them. To turn the topic from Andrea, she asked, "How are we gonna celebrate? Might be hard to bake a cake without an oven, but we got all the ingredients for some mighty fine mud pies. Shane and Carl can bring the frog legs."

Amy scrunched her nose in disgust. "I'll draw the line at squirrel, thanks."

Together, they finished hanging the laundry, and then joined Dale for a lunch of canned sardines. To keep Amy distracted, they kept up a steady stream of party ideas for her birthday. All the while, Jo kept glancing to her tent, waiting for Lee to come back and not daring to consider what she'd do if he never did.

* * *

The shade offered no respite from the boiling heat. Jo and Amy swung in the hammock, hoping to make their own breeze. It was past noon. The others should've returned by now.

"Do you want to go fishing?" said Jo.

"Not today," said Amy.

"I saw some berries around."

Amy dug her heels into the dirt to stop the hammock from swinging. "You can go."

Jo leaned back in the hammock and watched a bluejay giving itself a bath in the tree above. She was running out of things to do to distract Amy. What had girls done together for fun before the apocalypse? Growing up, Jo never had many friends. She was on the verge of suggesting they make daisy chains, when a whistling sound caught her ear. She shot up so quickly the hammock lurched and Amy nearly tumbled out.

"Do you hear that?" said Jo.

"No, what?" said Amy. "Wait…"

The sound was growing louder. It ricocheted off the quarry walls, making it impossible to tell from which direction it was coming from.

"What is it?" said Amy. Jo shrugged. She spied Shane making a beeline for the RV, slid out of the hammock, and hurried to join him. Amy followed close behind. Everyone was flocking to the RV, to Shane.

"What is it?" Shane called up to Dale on the roof.

"It's a car," said Dale, looking towards the road through his binoculars. "Stolen by the sound of it."

"Is it Andrea?" said Amy. She gripped Jo's arm as if she might faint. Jo barely noticed. She was looking for Lee and she couldn't find him. Even if he was down by the lake, he must've heard the car alarm by now. By the time a flaming red Charger zipped into view, the sound was unbearable. Shane and Jim ran to the car before it came to squealing, tires spinning, gravel spitting stop. Glenn grinned at them all from behind the wheel.

"Turn it off!" Shane shouted, slamming his hands against the hood of the car. Amy let go of Jo to sprint to the car. She flung open the driver's side door and practically dragged Glenn from the car by his collar.

"Where's Andrea?" she said. "Where's my sister? Is she alright?"

"Pop the damn hood, please!" said Shane. Glenn untangled himself from Amy, reached into the car, and popped the hood. It took Jim less than two seconds to cut the alarm. A moment of absolute silence followed. Jo stuck her pinky in ear, which did nothing to stop the ringing.

"Is she okay? Is she alright?" said Amy, breaking the silence. "Why isn't she with you? Where is she?"

"She's fine. Everybody is," said Glenn. "Well, Merle not so much."

"Are you crazy?" said Shane, rounding on Glenn. "Driving this wailing bastard up here? Are you trying to draw every walker for miles?"

Glenn wrung his baseball cap in his hands and looked to the ground. "I think we're okay," said Dale, coming to the kid's defense. "The alarm was echoing all over these hills. Hard to pinpoint the source."

Shane's jaw twitched. He was not satisfied. Having been on the receiving end of one of his lectures more times than she could count, Jo took pity on Glenn. "What about Merle?" she said, intervening before Shane had a chance to carry on.

Glenn looked up at her. Before he could answer, a white van rounded the corner into view. "That's them," he said. Andrea was the first to leap from the back of the van. Amy raced the Morales children to the vehicle. Jo looked again for Lee and found him this time lingering by their tent, watching the reunions, almost as if he was waiting for a particular someone, a dead someone.

"What took you so long?" said Shane. "We thought you were all goners."

"We would've been," said Morales. He had one arm around his wife's waist and the other around his children. "If it wasn't for the new guy.

"New guy?" said Jo, coming to stand beside Shane.

"Yeah, he's a cop too." Morales looked to the van. "Hey, new guy, come meet everyone."

Jo turned to the man stepping out from behind the van. She thought she was imagining things until she looked to Shane and saw the same wide-eyed disbelief on his face that was surely slapped across her own. "But he's dead," she said. Shane didn't seem to have heard. He was staring at the new guy and the new guy stared back.

"DAD!" screamed Carl. "DAD!" He broke free of Lori's hold and ran. Rick Grimes dropped to his knees, opened his arms wide, and caught his son. Apparently walkers weren't the only ones who could come back from the dead. She looked to Lee again and caught him smiling. As soon as he realized she was watching, he turned his back on the group and disappeared into the tent.

* * *

Jo had volunteered to fetch more kindling. From where she was crouched at the edge of camp, shining her flashlight over the ground, she heard the others talking and laughing. Carl had fallen asleep in his mother's lap awhile ago. It was late. No one wanted to go to bed after hearing Rick's story. Jo still couldn't quite believe that he was here. When she looked at him, she kept expecting him to be gone. When she glanced to the firepit and saw he was no longer there beside Lori, she began to panic.

"Need any help?" said Rick, startling her. She scooped up the pile of twigs she'd gathered and stood.

"I got it," she said. "You're not doing any work tonight."

For a bit, they stood side by side, watching the happy scene around the fire. Jo wanted to touch him, make sure he was real, not a ghost, but she also didn't want to ruin the illusion if he wasn't real. "I'm glad you found us," she said. "Shane could use your help."

"He's in charge?"

"More or less. He thinks so, at least." She waited for Rick to ask where her mother was, but he didn't. "There's going to be trouble when Daryl gets back."

"I'll deal with it when the time comes," said Rick, now staring off towards Atlanta. No doubt he was thinking about Merle Dixon cuffed to the roof of the department store.

"Serves him right," said Jo.

"I heard y'all had a disagreement. You the one that messed up his nose?"

"Got him good with a flashlight," admitted Jo.

Rick smiled. "Sounds about right." His smile quickly turned to a frown when he looked to Atlanta again.

"We'll worry about the Dixons tomorrow," said Jo. "Alright?"

Now wasn't the time to be worrying over the Dixon boys. After everything Rick had gone through, waking up alone in the hospital to a world of shit, he deserved one night to simply be with his family. They were about to return to the fireside, when Rick held her back by putting a hand to her arm. "Your mom?" he said.

Jo had never been any good at lying to Rick Grimes, but now wasn't the time for this talk, either. "Gone," she said, summarizing the truth. Rick opened his mouth. She smelled an apology coming, so she hurried on with, "It's okay. We got you back. That's one more miracle than I ever saw coming my way."

One more miracle than she deserved. Then again, she doubted God had sent it for her.


	3. Spotted Deadnettle

As Shane took a screeching turn, Jo reached for the oh-shit bar. The water cooler tipped over. "Check it," Shane yelled over the wind. Jo glanced back between the seats.

"It's fine," she said.

"Buckle," said Shane.

She rolled her eyes. Dying in a car crash might be a blessing these days. Still, she pulled the strap tight across her chest. Shane had been in a foul mood all morning. Now wasn't the time to pick a fight. "What's up with you?"

"Nothing."

"Bullshit." Jo leaned towards him so he could hear her better. "Something must've crawled up your butt and died there last night."

"Worried about when Daryl gets back, that's all."

Jo stared hard at the side of his head, trying to penetrate that thick skull of his. She knew he felt her staring, even though he didn't take his eyes off the road. "He wasn't dead," she said into the wind. "You left him, didn't you?"

There was no doubt he'd heard her exactly, word for word. Shane braked hard, coming to a dead stop that made Jo glad she'd buckled. He kept looking straight ahead, ran his hand through his hair a few times. "I didn't know what to do. The hospital was crawling with walkers." Finally, he looked at her. "There was no way we were both getting out. He was unconscious. I couldn't carry him and fire."

Jo couldn't hold his gaze for long. In his eyes was a plea for forgiveness. Who was she to decide, though? Who was she to judge?

"You tried," she said. I didn't, she thought. "Rick will understand."

"Lori won't," said Shane. He put the jeep in drive. Jo checked the cooler again.

"Remember that waterpark y'all took us to?" she said.

"I remember you puking on the slide."

Jo punched his arm. "That was your fault for saying I couldn't eat three sundaes on my own." The corner of Shane's lips curved into the teeniest, tiniest smile. "Do you think it's still there, that park?"

"They tore it down a couple years back," said Shane.

"Damn. I was thinking, if we went now, we wouldn't have to wait in any lines." Jo spotted camp when the trees opened up. There was one more thing she needed to say while they were alone. "Thanks for doing that for us. Thanks for giving us a normal day." It was only the way she knew how to forgive him and she hoped he understood. All the good he'd done outweighed the bad. She didn't blame him for Rick. Or for Mama.

Shane nodded. He understood what she was trying to say. He always did.

Jo let T-Dogg help unload the water. For once, Lee wasn't off by himself. He and Glenn stood nearby, watching Jim and Dale strip down the flaming red Charger. She heard her brother talking to Glenn as she walked up behind them. "I would've liked to get behind the wheel of that."

"Over my dead body," said Jo. Lee spun around. He glared at her for a moment and she waited for him to storm off, keep on giving her the silent treatment.

"It's not like I'm ever gonna get my license now," he muttered. "Besides, you're not the boss of me." With that said, Lee did storm off. Jo smiled as she watched him go.

"Don't know what you're smiling about," said Ed Peletier. "I'd wash out that smart mouth of his, if I was you."

Jo didn't even look at the man. If there was anyone at camp she hated more than the Dixons, it was Ed. She'd seen the bruises on his wife and little girl. She knew where those bruises came from. They were identical to her own scars. "We all know what you'd do," she hissed. "Mind your own business."

Ed spat at the ground and kept walking. Whatever he muttered under his breath, Jo didn't care. Lee was a smartass, no arguments there, but he'd talked. That was something. "Cheer up, kid," she said, slapping Glenn on the back. "Plenty of cars out there just waiting to be stolen."

"Can you not call me _kid_?" said Glenn, grimacing. "I'm older than you."

"Yeah, well, you look like a kid with that stupid thing on your head." Jo snatched his cap and leapt back. "You've got some dried walker guts in your hair still."

As Glenn began feverishly raking his hands through his hair, Jo laughed. It wasn't something she ever thought she'd do again, but Lee had said more than two words to her, and Rick was alive, and Andrea was home in time for Amy's birthday, and maybe, maybe, she could make do with this.

Then the children began screaming. "MOM! MOM!"

"CARL!" Lori bolted into the woods with Rick and Shane close behind.

"Stay," ordered Jo, sprinting past her brother. She didn't pause to see if he obeyed. By the time she and Glenn caught up to the others, Lori was checking Carl for bites, while Carol clutched her daughter. There didn't appear to be a scratch on either of them.

Jo walked on, following the men's voices, and found them standing in a ring around a walker, beating the thing with whatever was in their hands. Dale swung his axe. With a wet thud, the walker's head rolled. "They never come this far up the mountain," said Dale, somewhat stunned.

"Well, they're running out food," said Jim.

Jo approached the corpse. There was a dead deer sprawled beside it. Plenty of food for the damn things here. A branch snapped. Jo's hand went for the hunting knife, before she remembered she'd given it to Lee. Shane stepped up beside her with his baseball bat ready to swing at whatever tumbled out of the trees. "Get back," he whispered. Jo stood her ground as Daryl Dixon emerged.

"Son of a bitch," said Daryl, "that's my deer." He knelt by the animal carcass, oblivious to the walker and to the group of men standing armed at the ready around him. "All gnawed on now by this filthy, disease-bearing, motherless, poxy bastard." He kicked the walker every few words for emphasis.

"Calm down, son," said Dale. "That's not helping."

"What do you know about it, old man? I've been tracking this deer for miles. Gonna drag it back to camp, cook us up some venison. What do you think?" He eyed the deer. "Think we can cut around this chewed up part?"

"I would not risk that," said Shane, leaning on his baseball bat like a cane.

"That's a damn shame," said Daryl. "I got some squirrels. That'll have to do." He spotted Jo and tossed the string of squirrels at her. "Why don't you make yourself useful, woman, and get these ready?"

Jo threw the squirrels right back at him as hard as she could. No one talked to her like that. Not anymore. Especially not Dixon, either one of them. She spun around and headed for the lake. Rick was bound to tell Daryl about his brother soon and, personally, she didn't want to be around for it.

* * *

Lee was at the lake. For awhile, Jo watched him skip rocks from a distance, before gathering the nerve to walk up to him. "You never were any good at that," she said. Lee tossed another stone into the lake. He wasn't even trying to make them leap across the water. He probably just needed to throw things. Fair enough.

"I shouldn't have slapped you," said Jo. "I'm sorry."

Lee had one stone left. He tossed it from palm to palm. "You killed my mother," he said. His voice was flat, the plop of pebbles breaking the surface of a lake.

"She's my mother, too," said Jo.

Lee chucked his last stone at the lake and then faced her. " _Was_ your mother, not _is_. Past tense, because you killed her. You always hated her."

"She was weak, she was sick," said Jo, bristling against how close he'd hit to the truth. Their mother had always been weak. "She was already dead, Lee. What was I supposed to do? Christ, she couldn't even get to the toilet by herself. Even if she stood a chance in hell of surviving the walkers, the cancer would've got her soon enough. I wasn't going to put you at risk just to give her a few more weeks of pain and misery."

"Don't put it on me!" said Lee. "I don't need you to look after me. You've already betrayed everyone else in our family. It's only a matter of time before you turn on me to save your own ass."

Jo didn't try to stop him from leaving. Why couldn't he understand? Everything she had ever done was for him, to keep him safe. How many beatings had she taken from their father so that Lee would be spared? And when that didn't work anymore, she committed the unforgivable sin, sold out her own father, her own blood, to the cops.

She had smothered their mother with a pillow so that he wouldn't have to be the one to leave her behind later on. She'd taken that choice from him to spare him the guilt. He didn't understand and, well, that was sort of the point. He was a kid. He wasn't supposed to understand yet. Someday, when he was ready, she hoped he'd forgive her for the both of them.

* * *

Rick was going back for Merle Dixon. Word spread fast in camp. Besides, most everyone had witnessed Daryl's rage after the news broke to him about his brother.

"I don't understand why he's going back," said Amy. She and Jo were in the hammock, their favorite place, and a good one to stay out of the way. Daryl was still raging around camp like a wildfire. Anyone who bumped into him was sure to get burned. "Merle isn't worth it to anyone besides his brother," Amy went on. "He's not worth the risk of going into Atlanta again, not after last time. But does that make me awful?" She looked to Jo. "I mean, if it was Andrea, I'd go, so I get why Daryl is going. I don't get Rick."

Jo would've laughed if her mouth weren't full of dust. "He's easy to read, really," she said. She looked to where Lori and Rick were talking with their heads close together. Lori certainly didn't seem happy. Rick's back was to her; she couldn't see his face, but she could make an educated guess what he was feeling. "He has a savior complex. It all comes down to that. He can't help himself."

"Savior complex?" said Amy, grinning.

"Spent a lot of time with the guidance counsellor as a kid," said Jo. Even though she never talked, she listened, and she used to diagnosis everyone she met. "Shane, now, he's the complicated one."

"You've known them a long time, haven't you?"

"Yeah," said Jo. "A long ass time." Most of her life. She'd been a runt, Lee was just a toddler, when Shane and Rick pulled into their yard with blue lights flashing. They'd been newbies, fresh from the academy, so the domestic calls always seemed to land on them. From that day on, Jo hadn't been able to shake them, and she had tried her hardest.

Lori had retreated into the RV. Rick was now kneeling before Carl, one hand on his son's shoulder. Carl nodded. His little face was so pale, so serious. Shane and Rick had put their careers and their lives on the line for her and Lee a thousand times.

Jo sighed. She hopped out of the hammock the second Rick was done with Carl. "Where are you going?" Amy called after her.

"There's something I gotta do," she said, not looking back.

* * *

Jo stepped out of her tent, with her pack slung over her shoulder, and nearly collided with Shane. "You're not going," he said. She brushed past him and walked on towards the van. Shane fell in beside her. "Did you hear me, girl?"

"Yeah, I heard," said Jo. "And I'm still going."

"Now hold up." Shane cut in front her. He could really make himself into a brick wall when he wanted. "Maybe I can't talk any sense into Rick, I can't stop him, but I'll be damned if I let you anywhere near that death trap."

"It's not your decision to make," said Jo. "Besides, I know about the bag of guns, the one Rick dropped. We need them. You've been pestering me to get involved, so this is me, getting involved."

"This is you being an idiot."

Jo shrugged. "Maybe. All the same, I'm a grown woman and I'm going." She tried to sidestep him. Shane blocked her.

"What about Lee?"

"He'll probably throw a party if I don't come back."

"Jolene-"

Jo held up both hands. Nothing good ever followed her full name. "I'm going. Don't make me say it again."

Shane crossed his arms and stared at her hard for a good, long minute. Until Daryl started blaring the horn, summoning her. Jo flipped him off over her shoulder, keeping her eyes fixed on Shane. "Why are you doing this?" he finally said. "For the Dixons, of all people?"

"It's not for them," said Jo. "Look, if anything happens, you'll take care of Lee, right?"

"You don't even need to ask," said Shane. "Just keep your head down out there. Listen to Rick."

Daryl laid on the horn again. "I should go," she said, spinning away from him before he made her promise. Listening to anyone had never been a skill she possessed. She was almost to the van, when Amy ambushed her with an axe.

"Here," she said, holding out the axe to Jo. "You might need this. Hope you don't, but better to be prepared."

Jo tested the weight. It was heavy enough to crack a skull, not too heavy to swing. Someone had recently sharpened the blade. "Is this Dale's?"

"Yeah," said Amy, "and you know how he is about his tools, so you better bring it back."

"I will," promised Jo. She glanced to Shane nearby and knew that he was eavesdropping. "I wouldn't want to miss your birthday party, anyways. Hear it's gonna be a real carnival."

Amy went to hug her. Jo, remembering the sharp axe in her hands, retreated from the embrace. Daryl stuck his head out of the front window and hollered, "You coming or what?"

"I'll see ya," said Jo. She sprinted the last couple of feet to the van before anyone else stalled her. As soon as she hopped into the back, Glenn and T-Dogg closed the doors, casting them into darkness.

* * *

On Glenn's orders, Daryl parked the van just outside of city limits. Atlanta shimmered like a mirage in a desert wasteland. The stench of rot carried on the breeze. Jo buried her nose in the crook of her elbow, but to be honest, she didn't smell much better.

"I want you to stay with the van," said Rick.

Jo tore her eyes from the city. "No way," she said.

"Someone needs to."

She looked around. Not a living soul around. "Worried the walkers are gonna go for a joy ride?"

"We don't know who could be out here," said Rick.

"Bullshit." Jo squeezed the axe handle. "You don't think I can take care of myself."

Rick tried to touch her shoulder. She slouched out from under his hand. "You haven't seen the city," he said. "It's overrun, Jolene."

"So I'm supposed to let you go in alone?" she snapped.

"Not alone," said Rick, nodding to the others. Jo snorted. Those three didn't count. They were basically strangers still. T-Dogg and Glenn seemed alright, but that didn't mean she could trust them not to leave Rick for the walkers if the situation got too hot, and Daryl was just as likely to kill Rick himself. "I'd feel better if you stayed," Rick went on. "We might need to get out quick. We'll need you here, ready with the getaway car."

"This isn't a bank robbery," said Jo.

"I know," said Rick. "The stakes are higher than that. All the more reason for you to stick with the van."

Jo looked to Atlanta again. She remembered that night on the highway, watching them drop napalm on the city from the roof of Dale's RV. Amy had held her hand. They didn't even know each other's names yet. How could all that have happened such a short time ago?

"If you're not back here in a few hours," she said, turning back to Rick, "then I'm coming after you."

"Thank you," he said.

Jo slumped against the side of the van as the others passed. Daryl took the rear. He stopped a foot away from her, with his crossbow raised, and an arrow fixed on her heart. "It's your fault my brother got caught up in this," he said. "Merle wouldn't have gone if it weren't for you. Just because you're here now, don't mean you're forgiven."

Daryl lowered his crossbow.

"You better get going," said Jo, cool as a cucumber. The fact that Merle was handcuffed to a roof was no one's fault but his own. No point trying to explain that to Daryl. He hadn't shown himself to be the sort who listened to reason.

She watched Daryl catch up to the others. She kept watching until Atlanta's shadow swallowed them up. The putrid breeze stirred her hair. She perched on the bumper with the axe laid across her knees, her eyes on the city. The fires had all burned out.

Daryl was right about one thing. She'd joined this rescue mission as penance of a sort. Not for Merle. Fuck him. She had come to support Rick. He always had to be the hero. He always had to save people, whether or not they were worth the effort. He had saved her. She thought, if she made sure he got home to his wife and son, then maybe she wouldn't hate herself so much.

Now here she was, left behind, no good to anyone. She could've refused to babysit the van, but she hadn't, because one look at the smoldering city was enough to wash away everything but the fear. One look and she felt like the world was ending all over again. She was a coward. Like Lee had said, when it came down to the wire, she chose herself.


	4. Red Hot Poker

Jo wished she had a watch. She made do with tracking the sun's progress across the sky. There was nothing else to occupy her. She hadn't even seen a single walker. The quiet was eerie in its emptiness. To break it, she sang to herself, "I gave my woman half my money at the general store. Said buy a little groceries, don't spend no more. Then she paid ten dollars for a ten cent hat and got some food for a mean eyed cat."

She couldn't remember what came next. The song was one her father used to sing when she was knee-high, before Lee came along. She hadn't heard it in a very long time. Falling into the silence, she wondered if her father was still alive. God, she hoped not. The next bit of the song came to her. "When I woke up this morning, and I turned my head, there wasn't a cotton picking thing on her side of the bed. I found a little note where her head belonged, said dear Johnny, honey, baby…"

Even if her father was alive, the odds were slim of their paths crossing. She certainly wasn't going to seek him out. All the same, his old songs were a comfort. If she remembered them, if she didn't let them go, then she still had something of the old world. "Dear Johnny, honey, baby," she sang, "I'm long gone."

The sun's shadow dragged inch by inch across the pavement. Jo made up her mind that if Rick and the others weren't back by the time the shadow reached the train tracks, then she was going in after them. "C'mon, c'mon," she muttered, drumming her hands against the steering wheel. She didn't want to go into the city. Christ, she didn't even know where to begin looking for them. All her life, she'd lived a couple hours away, without having once set foot inside city limits. The shadow was close to the tracks. Going in after them was stupid. She had zero chance of survival. But what were the other options? Keep waiting here until she starved to death or head back to camp, leave them behind, assuming they were alive?

Option two made the most sense. If they were dead, she'd be waiting forever. If she tried to find them alone, then she'd be dead. If she went to camp, Shane would know what to do. Except she already knew what Shane would do. He'd say they couldn't afford to loose more people by sending another group into Atlanta, and that they couldn't weaken the camp, and they just had to trust Rick to come back from the dead twice. For nearly anyone else, Jo would've agreed with him, but she couldn't with Rick. It wasn't that she loved him any more than Shane, rather she owed him too much.

Stupid as it was, she knew what had to be done. Jo reached for the axe in the passenger seat. Her fingers curled around the wooden handle when sudden pain exploded across the back of her head.

The world went black.

* * *

Jo smelled smoke, oil, and blood. She assumed Atlanta was on fire again, but when she opened her eyes she didn't see the city, just trees through the windshield. The world appeared to have tipped over on its side. Soon, however, she realized that she and the van were what had been knocked sideways. The smoke wasn't from Atlanta. It was billowing out from under the crushed hood.

There was an unconscious man in the driver's seat. Jo couldn't see his face the way he was slumped over the middle console. Thankfully, he was wearing his seatbelt. It was the only thing keeping him from falling into the passenger seat and crushing her. Was he dead? Whoever he was, he had stolen the van, along with her, but not before he'd given her a hard knock on the back of the head. So if he was dead, then good.

Jo couldn't see the trees through the smoke now. It was time to get out. When she tried to move, though, pain erupted along the right side of her body. She looked down to the metal splinter stuck between her ribs. The sight, the smell of gasoline, made her dizzy. There was so much smoke. Taking shallow breaths through her nose, she gripped the shrapnel and pulled. Blood gushed from the wound, but she couldn't worry about that. Later, not now. Ignoring the pain, she twisted around until she was able to stand, with her feet planted against the passenger window. She braced one hand against the headrest as she pushed up on her tiptoes and reached for the man's belt buckle. She pressed the button and, still clutching the headrest, threw herself against the seat to avoid him as he fell.

Blood trickled from Merle Dixon's ear. His eyes were closed, but he was breathing. Too bad, thought Jo, unsurprised that he was the one who'd stolen the van. She climbed to the open driver's side window, her only exit, and was almost through, when her foot slipped and she landed in a heap on top of Merle. His face was less than an inch from her's and his eyes were no longer closed.

Jo didn't waste any time. She leapt for the open window again. Merle caught her ankle. "Hell no, you ain't leaving me here!" he cried. She managed to shake him loose, scrambled back up into the driver's seat, and hauled herself through the window. She tumbled out onto the pavement. "Bitch, come back!" Merle's scream was part sob. "C'mon, you can't leave me!"

Jo stopped. Greasy smoke stung her throat, nose, and eyes. She hated Merle Dixon, but if she left him to die, she feared his pitiful cries for help would haunt her, and she had enough ghosts as it was. So she went back to the van. Drawing on the last bit of strength left in her, she pried open the driver's door and leaned down in. "Grab hold," she said, lowering her arms to him.

Merle reached for her. When he did, she reeled back in horrified disgust. Where his left hand used to be there was now nothing more than a stump wrapped in a bloody bandana. She forced down her revulsion. Later she could vomit, but for now she took his outstretched hand, the one remaining, and pulled with all her might. Merle spilled onto the ground. "C'mon," she said. He was only semi-conscious. She slipped under his arm to support him and began limping away from the van again.

Coughing, eyes streaming, she put as much distance between them and the van as she could, step by impossible step. About a hundred yards into the woods, she could go no further, and both she and Merle collapsed on a carpet of pine needles. Lying beside her, Merle curled up into a ball, clutched his bloody stump, and sobbed. Jo stared up at the tree tops. It felt like her side was splitting open with every breath she drew. The adrenaline wore off quick.

We're going to die, she thought, pressing her hands to her bleeding wound. Oddly enough, she wasn't scared of the possibility. The ground trembled. The van had blown.

* * *

Merle was passed out. Jo stood over him. What now? She couldn't drag him back to Atlanta and the amputee motherfucker had wrecked their only means of transportation. Black smoke curled up into the sky. She didn't know where they were, how far from the city, or how far from camp. Unsure what else to do, she checked her wound. It had stopped bleeding, mostly, but she suspected she might need stitches.

Jo nudged Merle with the toe of her boot. He grunted, still alive. She was careful not to look at his stump. When she did, she felt sick. Well, even sicker. She'd saved him, sure, but that didn't mean she wasn't tempted to cut his throat here and now. However, if she was going to kill him, it would have to be a fair fight. She wasn't entirely without honor.

They needed water. She found a branch to serve as a cane and set out in search of a stream, or a lake, or a muddy puddle. The deeper into the woods she went, the less sunlight penetrated the tree tops, and soon she was stumbling in the near dark. The thought of having to spend the night with a half-dead Merle Dixon, out in the open, was a nightmare come true.

Eventually she found a stream bed. It was mostly dry. There hadn't been any rain in weeks. She managed to fill up her canteen and then followed her own tracks back to where she'd left Merle. He was awake by the time she returned. She found him propped against a disease spotted maple. She dropped the canteen into his lap without a word, watched him struggle to twist the lid with one hand, and did not offer to help. He got more water on his shirt than in his mouth. After a few gulps, she snatched the canteen away.

"I weren't finished," he said.

Jo ignored him. She looked around for firewood, thinking that she should boil the rest of the water before cleaning her wound. Only she didn't have a lighter and she didn't know how to start a fire by rubbing two twigs together, so fuck it. She drank the last of the water. If she got an infection, oh well. She was probably going to die soon anyway. It didn't seem Merle could stand, let alone walk. Besides, where would they walk to? Had Rick and the others made it out of Atlanta? Would they think she'd abandoned them? The best thing would be to return to the highway, find her bearings, but just the idea was enough to exhaust her. She had used the last of her energy reserve on seeking water.

"What's the plan?' said Merle.

Jo glared at him. Finally, she spoke, "Well, I thought we could steal a car and then wreck it. How does that sound?"

"Give me a break. It ain't easy driving like this," said Merle. He held up his stump. "Purty, right? Did it all myself."

"Crazy bastard," muttered Jo.

"Had to get off that roof somehow," said Merle. "That old man's saw was too dull for the cuffs."

"We came back for you. You're welcome for that, by the way. If you'd waited, you'd still have two hands, so don't expect any sympathy from me."

"How come you're the one sitting over there bitchin'? It's me ought to be doing that."

"You kidnapped me!" said Jo.

Merle shrugged. "I was doing you a favor. Could've left you for the walkers."

Jo fumed in silence. There was no point arguing with the man. Arguing wasn't going to solve their problem. Right now, she had to swallow her pride or die here with Merle Dixon; dying didn't particularly trouble her, she just didn't want his face to be the last thing she ever saw. "We should go back to the road," she said.

"That explosion probably drew every walker for miles," said Merle. "Besides, you don't look so good, sugar tits."

"I'm fine," she snapped. Merle grinned at her.

"You're a pig-headed thing, ain't you?" He wiped a glob of spit from his bottom lip. "Be smart, girl. We got a few hours of daylight left. Get some shut eye. I'll keep watch."

"You expect me to trust you?" said Jo.

Merle displayed his stump to her yet again. "I ain't exactly in a position to be out here alone. What good would killin' you do me?"

Jo didn't want to even consider his suggestion, but her head was so heavy, and she hurt so much. "I owe you one," he said. Frankly, he owed her more than that. She didn't trust him, not a smidge, but she was shutting down and there wasn't much she could do to stop it. Just as she was giving in, letting her eyes close, Merle spoke again. "Did my brother come lookin' for me?"

"Yeah," she muttered.

"Bet he threw a royal fit. Darlena always was too sentimental," said Merle, chuckling. That was not a word which she associated with the younger Dixon. Inbred, ass backwards, degenerate, but not sentimental. "What 'bout you, blondie? What the hell you doin' here?"

Good question, thought Jo. She had come for Rick and a whole fat lot of good she'd been to him. "I don't know," she finally said. "I don't know why any of us are doing what we do anymore."

"Nah," said Merle. "You're here to set a good example for your little bro, I bet. He's a good kid."

"Hey Dixon?"

"Yeah?"

"Shut up."

Merle kept talking. His voice seemed to be coming from further and further away. "It ain't easy being the oldest. There's the one thing we probably agree on, blondie. We do what we can for them, but there comes a time when all little chicks gotta fly the coop."

Jo didn't hear the end of what he had to say. She had already fallen asleep.

* * *

Lee was trapped in a ring of fire, screaming to her for help, but she was surrounded by walkers. She couldn't get to him. Ash covered the ground like snow and there was Merle Dixon, sitting in a tree, waving his stump at her. "Let him go," said Merle. "You gotta let him go."

Jo woke to something tugging at her foot. Thinking it was an animal, she kicked out. "Get," she muttered. A low growl answered her. A sound she had never heard any animal make. She sat up and opened her eyes. A man in a singed suit was chewing on the ankle of her boot. Well, he used to be a man, not anymore. The left side of his face was melted. Jo's instinct propelled her into action. She kicked the walker's head, reaching for her knife at the same time, and as she soon as she had the hilt in hand, she plunged the blade deep into the walker's filthy, rotting skull.

The walker slumped across her legs. Dead weight. As she caught her breath, she looked around for Merle, and found not a sign of him. She called his name as she freed her legs out from under the corpse. She called his name again, louder, even though she knew he was long gone. That son-of-a-bitch. Let him die out there alone. She had done more than enough for him.

With knife in hand, she set out for the road. Waking up to a walker attack had recharged her adrenaline. She crept past the smoking remains of the van and the few walkers still prowling around it. She ran in short bursts, but couldn't hold the pace for very long. Each step was a trial. Her wound began to bleed again. She chanted her brother's name to keep going. All day she walked without stopping, despite the pain, the hunger, the thirst.

The sky turned coal black. There were no stars, no moon, to light her way. She was certain she was close to camp. Nearly home, she thought. After yesterday, the quarry felt like home. Leaving a place, and not knowing when or if you'll be back, makes you realize what that place means to you. She didn't plan on leaving again. No more rescue missions. No more trying to play the hero.

Her thoughts were like skeins of yarn, unravelling and tangling. Her clothes and hair smelled of gasoline. The gravel crunched and shifted under her boots. She tried to ignore the pain in her side as the gravel road levelled. Yes, she knew where she was. Camp was definitely close. What was she going to tell the others? Was Rick back yet? She hoped that Daryl hadn't made it out of Atlanta, because she didn't want to be the one to tell him about his brother, about the stump.

Jo veered off the gravel road onto a dirt path. Less than a mile to go, the final stretch. She started jogging and didn't stop this time, not even when she couldn't breathe. She saw light up ahead. A campfire, a beacon leading her home. Now she could see figures through the trees.

And now she heard something like the whine of a dying dog. Jo broke through the trees into camp and froze. There were bodies everywhere. Some of them she recognized, others she didn't. She found the source of the whining sound and it wasn't a dog. It was Andrea, and she was crouching over something, or someone, but Jo couldn't see the person's face, only their tennis shoes. She knew those shoes, knew who they belonged to, but she couldn't put the two together. She didn't want to.

Someone touched her arm. She reared, ready to strike. "It's me!" said Glenn, holding up both hands as if in surrender. Jo blinked at him.

"What…?" She couldn't find words. Those shoes might be anyone's. Jo swayed where she stood.

"Whoa," said Glenn, wrapping his arm around her waist. "Maybe you should sit."

Jo pushed him away. No, there was something else she had to do.

"What happened to you?" said Glenn.

"Merle," she managed to say. She couldn't take her eyes off of those damn shoes. It couldn't be.

"What was that?" said Daryl, appearing from the shadows. Jo barely registered him. "Hey, I'm talking to you!"

"Lay off," said Glenn. "Now isn't the time."

Daryl shoved the kid aside and caught Jo by the shoulders. He shook her, but she still didn't look at him. Andrea was wailing even louder. "Where's my brother?" said Daryl, shaking her harder. She kept on staring at the tennis shoes. She didn't see Daryl's hand until it struck her across the cheek. Her head snapped to the side. "Where's my goddamn brother?"

"Let go," said Jo, pushing at him.

"Not until you tell me what happened to Merle."

"He's gone!"

"What d'you mean? Where?"

Before she could say, _I don't fucking know,_ Daryl was yanked off of her. "What the hell you think you're doing?" said Shane. He had his gun on Dixon. The last time Jo had seen him so angry was the day he'd taken her father away for good.

"Bitch knows about my brother," said Daryl.

"Damn your brother," said Shane. "Weren't for him, we wouldn't be surrounded by our dead right now. Look around, man. Your brother worth all these people?"

"Hell with you!"

To hell with Daryl Dixon. Jo wasn't paying him any attention anymore. She clutched Shane's arm. "What happened?"

"Walkers," said Glenn.

"Lee?" she said, fixing her eyes on Shane. He didn't answer. She let go of his arm, limped past the three of them, and dropped to her knees by the nearest body. She rolled it over to see the face, _not Lee_ , before crawling over to check the next.

"Jolene," said Shane, following her. She ignored him until he lifted her off the ground.

"Where is he?" she demanded.

"I don't know," said Shane, reaching out to her. "I'm sorry, Jo. It happened so fast. I-"

Jo slapped his hands away from her. "You promised to keep him safe!" she screamed. "You promised!"

"I saw him," a small, little voice piped in. Jo spun to find Carl standing behind her. The boy was trembling, tears streaked his cheeks. "He was running away."

"Which way?" said Jo. She almost grabbed Carl, shook him as Daryl had done to her a moment ago, and just barely restrained herself. Carl pointed in the direction of the quarry. The lake, of course. She broke into a run, stumbled on a body, and would've fallen if Shane hadn't steadied her.

"We can't go rushing off right now," he said, squeezing her arm. "Jolene, think for a second, we don't know how many more-"

Jo drew the knife from her belt with her free hand and raised it at Shane. "Don't think I won't," she said. Shane let her go. She turned her back on him and plunged into the woods.


	5. Earth Gall

Andrea's howls faded to silence. The woods were quiet as a grave. Jo gripped her knife. She didn't care if there were more walkers in the wood. She'd kill them all to get to her brother. Nothing could stop her. How could she have left Lee? How could she have been stupid enough to think he'd be safe? If she found him, _when_ she found him, she was never letting him leave her sight again.

A twig snapped close behind. Jo whipped around. "Easy, girl," said Daryl, sidestepping her knife. Realizing he wasn't a walker, she kept on. Daryl fell in beside her.

"I don't know where Merle is," she snapped.

"Later," said Daryl. "We're looking for your brother right now, ain't we?"

Whatever, she didn't care why he'd followed her, or why he was suddenly behaving like a decent human being. As soon as they broke free of the trees, she ran, sand flying behind her. Dale's boat bobbed way out on the dark water with a lone figure crouched in the prow.

"LEE!" she screamed. Either he couldn't hear or he didn't want to. Jo kept running right into the lake. She needed to touch him, to hold onto him until hell froze over and Merle Dixon grew a new hand. Even though she was knee-deep in the cold water, she felt on fire. Blood billowed around her on the surface of the water. She didn't know if it came from her clothes or her wound. It didn't matter. She had to get to the boat, to her brother.

Calloused fingers clamped around her arm. "Ge'off," she snarled.

"Nah," said Daryl. He gave her a yank. Her feet slipped on the sandy lake bottom and she sank. Water rushed into her mouth. She was only under a few seconds before Daryl fished her out. With his arm around her waist, he began dragging her back to shore. She was too preoccupied choking up lake water to fight him. He tossed her onto the sand like a dead fish.

Jo was still gasping for air. She looked up at Daryl through clumps of sopping wet hair. The boat was so far away now. She didn't say a word. She didn't have to. Daryl waded back out into the water, leaving her alone on the beach. A million years seemed to go by as she watched him swimming to the boat. Please God, she thought, let him be okay and I'll do anything, anything, I swear. She couldn't remember the last time she'd prayed.

For once, God was listening. The boat was coming to shore. Jo waded out to meet it.

"Get back," said Daryl. She ignored him. Her eyes locked on Lee. She reached her hands over the side of the boat to grab him.

"Are you hurt?" she said, her teeth chattering. "Are you okay?"

"I ran," mumbled Lee, clutching her hands. He was pale, shaking, terrified. He was alive. She looked for bites, or blood, and found nothing. "Amy…" he said, staring past her towards the shore. "I left them. I just ran."

Jo didn't care. She was glad he'd run. Daryl leapt overboard. "Get in," he said. She let him heave her into the boat. As Daryl Dixon pushed them to shore, she held her brother tight. Finally, she was home.

* * *

Jo woke on top of her sleeping bag with Lee nestled against her. She was wearing dry clothes, free of blood, though she didn't recall changing. Honestly, she didn't remember much at all after boarding the boat. It was still dark. Lee was snoring. She had always envied his ability to sleep through anything, but someone had to keep vigil.

She whimpered when she sat up. White hot pain flashed along her side. She lifted her t-shirt to examine a fresh set of stitches. The job was far from professional, but she wouldn't complain. She hadn't been picky about doctors before the apocalypse. She was even less picky now.

Jo laid back down beside her brother. When she closed her eyes, she saw the bodies, the tennis shoes. _I'll see ya_ , the last words she'd spoken to Amy. She wasn't ready to confront the truth, but her bladder was full. She had to go out there, where the bodies were, or piss herself.

The smell hit her as soon as she unzipped the tent. The smell of a stray dog rotting under the front porch in the summer. Jo kept her eyes on the ground as she waddled around her tent. Going into the woods would give her more privacy, but she didn't want to be caught with her pants down, literally, by a walker. Or maybe Merle Dixon.

Her hands shook as she fumbled with her zipper. Just as she was about to drop her jeans, Daryl's voice came from the darkness. "What you doing up?"

"Gotta go," muttered Jo, glancing to the sound of his voice.

"Where?"

"Nowhere," she said. "I mean, I gotta go." Her hands were still over her zipper. Daryl's face lit up as he flicked his lighter. She saw his eyes dart to her crotch. "Right," he said. Then he turned around. Jo stared at the back of his head for a moment. Oh, what the hell, she thought. Dignity was dead and gone, if she ever had any to begin with. She squatted, let go, and it felt good.

"You can turn around now," she said, finished and zipping her jeans. Jo took her smokes from her pocket. "Light?"

Once more, a small flame erupted, illuminating Daryl's face. She put two cigarettes between her lips and lit them over the little, flickering flame. Then she offered one of them to Daryl.

"Merle do that to your face?" he said, taking a drag. Jo prodded her bruised temple and winced.

"Knocked me out and stole the van," she said, too tired to do the story justice. "I woke up and we were wrecked on the highway."

Daryl was silent for a minute, smoking his Marlboro. "He never was much good at driving one-handed," he finally said.

"You know?" said Jo.

Daryl nodded. "Is he dead?"

"Not when I last saw him," said Jo. She blew smoke from the corner of her mouth, away from the direction of Daryl's voice. "He took off while I was unconscious." Jo caught another glimpse of him as he inhaled and the tip of his cigarette burned brighter. He didn't look angry, not now.

As if he knew what she was waiting for, another explosion on his part, he said, "I believe you."

Jo was too stunned to respond. She smoked her cigarette down to the filter and would've burned her fingers if Daryl hadn't knocked the butt from her hands and stomped it out under his boot. "Why?" she said, turning to him. He was just an outline, a looming presence in the dark, and she almost forgot who he was, why she ever hated him, because it was nice not to be alone in the dark.

"Why what?"

Jo crossed her arms. "You know."

"Your brother's a good kid," said Daryl. "Better than Merle. He's still got a chance."

Jo looked at her tent, thought of Lee sleeping within, safe, not a scratch on him. Thinking of the tennis shoes, she shook her head. "What's a chance worth in this world?" She didn't expect Daryl to answer and he didn't. She left him there alone in the dark to wonder if his brother was alive or dead, when it didn't matter either way, because life was worse than death these days, and yet all of them kept fighting to give the people they loved a chance, for whatever it was worth.

* * *

Come morning, Andrea hadn't moved. Jo limped over to Glenn standing over one of the bodies and wringing his red baseball cap in his hands. "Was she there all night?" she asked him.

"Yeah," said Glenn.

Jo then looked to the body at their feet. "One of ours?"

"Yeah," he said again. "Sandy Cooper. Her son was a sophomore at NYU."

Sandy Cooper's intestines were hanging loose. "Where are we taking her?" said Jo.

Glenn wiped the sweat from his brow and pulled his cap back on. "Over there," he said. "Away from camp."

Everyone else was doing something. Dale was with Andrea. Jacqui and Jim were arguing over how to carry the body at their feet. Rick and Shane, however, were missing. "Let's get this over with," said Jo, crouching down and scooping her arms under Sandy Cooper's knees. Glenn hesitated. She glared up at him from between the dead woman's spread eagle legs. "Well?"

Glenn took up the corpse's torso. Remembering her high school gym teachers advice, Jo lifted with her knees. She grimaced from the pain in her side.

"Should you be doing this?" huffed Glenn. Jo pressed her lips together and kept trudging. They followed Daryl and Morales to a spot not far out of camp. What else was she going to do? Sit in the shade with a good book, while the others cleared the dead? Was she supposed to sit around, waiting for Amy to turn?

"You look pale," said Glenn.

"I'm fine." But her arms trembled. She couldn't catch her breath. It was a relief to release the dead woman's legs. Sandy Cooper hit the forest floor with an unceremonious thud. Jo collapsed beside the chewed-up corpse. Her ribs were on fire. She looked up at Glenn, who seemed to have forgotten her, and was staring horrified at Daryl and Morales.

"What are you guys doing?" he said. "That pile is for geeks. Our people go over here."

"What's the difference?" said Daryl. "They're all infected.

Jo glanced at the loose flap of skin where Sandy Cooper's ear used to be. _Our people._ They didn't even look like people anymore. They were left-overs. All the same, Glenn was furious. Not once had she seen him so riled up. "Our people go here," he said, fists clenched. "We don't burn them. We bury them."

Morales knelt to retrieve the body. Daryl didn't stir. Neither did Glenn. It was a stand-off of glares. "Just do it, man," said Morales.

Daryl took up his end of the corpse, muttering, "You reap what you sow."

"Asshole," muttered Jo. Glenn remembered her down on the ground. "You're bleeding," he said. Sure enough, blood was soaking through her tank top.

"Probably popped a stitch," she said.

"You should get that sewn up," said Morales. He and Daryl dropped their body beside Sandy Cooper. "The last thing you want is an infection."

Jo looked at the pile of corpses. Daryl was right. Every one of them was diseased. She let Morales help her back to camp. Andrea still hadn't moved. Morales left her at her tent. Lee was inside. His bloodshot eyes went straight to her blood stained shirt. "Come here," he said, patting the ground beside him. Jo settled onto his sleeping bag as he searched his pack, withdrawing a set of needles and a spool of fishing wire. "I worked hard on those stitches, you know," he said.

Jo watched him sanitize a needle by lighter flame. She lifted her shirt when it was time and hissed as the red hot needle pierced her tender flesh. "Where'd you learn to do this?" she said, looking away.

"Mama," said Lee. He tugged the wire to close the hole. Their mother had learned a lot of doctor stuff over the years, especially after Papa stopped letting them go to the hospital, because the staff asked too many goddamn questions.

When Lee was finished, neither of them stirred. "I'm still mad at you," he said after a long time. "But after yesterday…" He wrapped a bit of fishing wire around his thumb. "I didn't think I'd ever see you again. When I was out there on the lake, well, I've never felt so alone." Lee looked at her through his dark eyelashes. Papa used to tease him for having eyes like a girl. "I don't want to be here without you."

Jo took his hand in both of hers. They sat together in silence, surrounded on all sides by the dead, and it was enough, just barely, that they had each other.

* * *

Jo sat some distance from Andrea. The hour dragged. She couldn't keep from glancing at Amy's white face every few minutes, as she ripped up chunks of dead brown grass. This place wasn't home. It was cursed now. Whatever came next, Jo knew she couldn't stay. She thought back to that night on the highway, the night she met Amy, and the two of them sitting on the roof of Dale's RV. Amy had told her they were setting up refugee centers in Atlanta. It was a lie. There was no refuge, not in the city, not here.

"Amy?" croaked Andrea. She was answered by a faint, rattling breath. Amy's hand began to twitch like a pale, bloated fish out of water. "Oh, Amy." Andrea cradled her sister's head in her lap. "I'm so sorry."

Amy snarled against Andrea's stomach. Her head rolled from side to side as she sniffed the air. Suddenly, she looked right at Jo. Her eyes bleached of life and color. Then she turned back to Andrea, snapping her jaws. Don't look away, Jo told herself, you owe it to Amy not to look away.

"I'm sorry." said Andrea. She put a gun to Amy's head. Jo looked away at the last second. One clear shot rang out. Then nothing. There was no beating their fists against the ground, or tearing at their hair, or weeping. No one had the energy to mourn properly.

Jo simply watched Amy's blood make rivers in the dust. The land belonged to the dead now. The living were an endangered species.

* * *

Andrea lagged behind Daryl and T-Dog as they carried Amy's body to the jeep. Jo watched them drive away. She leaned against the RV, listening to the whimpers of whoever was inside. "No, no, not this, please, oh god."

Shane leapt out of the RV, slamming the door behind him, and slumped beside her. "Lee alright?" he said.

"Yeah," said Jo, squinting at him. "Look, about last night, I wasn't in my right mind when I threatened you."

"You don't got to explain yourself to me," said Shane. "You were scared. We all were."

"No, stay away! Not again!"

Jo startled as the screaming resumed. "Is that Jim?" she said, side eyeing the curtained window.

Shane nodded. "He got bit."

"Shit," said Jo, stepping away from the RV. "What are you gonna do?"

"Keep him safe for now," said Shane. "Rick wants to take him to the CDC. He met some man back home who claims people are still holed up there, working on a cure."

"What do you think?" said Jo.

"That it's a load of shit." Shane jammed his cap onto his head. "We can't go into Atlanta again. Not now with half our people dead."

Having just seen the wasteland the city had become, Jo agreed with him. The CDC was a fool's dream and the cure was a fucking unicorn. All the same, she knew that's where Rick would go.

"I suggested we make our way to Fort Benning," said Shane.

"Then let's do it," said Jo. "You, me, and Lee. We both know there's nothing for us in Atlanta and we both know nothing's going to keep Rick from going if he believes there's even the slimmest chance of saving Jim."

Shane scowled at her. "You want to ditch everyone? After what just happened?"

Jo watched Glenn and Morales load the last body into the van. She wanted to ditch everyone _because_ of what had happened. "These people aren't your responsibility," she said. "They're not our's." Amy and Andrea, Glenn, Morales and his family, Dale, Jim, they were strangers.

"Let's bury them first," said Shane. Together, they began walking behind the van. "Have you talked to Lee about all this?"

"Not yet."

"Mind if I do?"

"Guess not," said Jo, shrugging. "Just keep it between the three of us."

Shane nodded. _The three of us_. She liked the sound of that. Less people to lose, less people to bury.

* * *

Jo hadn't been to a funeral since her great-aunt Bertie passed away. Lee was just a baby. The wake had been open casket.

Most everyone else had returned to camp. She lingered at the graves, needing a moment more, as Daryl shovelled dirt over Ed Peltier. Crows circled above. Jo scoured the nearby ground for rocks to throw at them. She aimed for the largest and the loudest, and she missed. An arrow whizzed over her head and struck the alpha's breast mid squak. The bird fell to earth like a feathery black shooting star.

Daryl retrieved his arrow from the crow. "She was your friend, wasn't she?" he said, nodding towards Amy's mound of dirt.

"No," said Jo. "Hardly knew her." She glanced sideways at him, his sweat-soaked wife-beater. Filling graves was hard work. She wondered why he was doing it. "Are you going to look for Merle?"

"Don't know," said Daryl. "Might stick around and see what the others do."

"Rick's going to the CDC," said Jo.

Daryl leaned on the shovel, considering his options as he watched the crows circle. "We ran into some Mexican gangsters in Atlanta," he said. "They took over this nursing home. Seemed to be doing alright for themselves."

"What do you mean by _took over_?"

Daryl looked at her. For a second, she thought he was about to smile. "They didn't massacre the old folks, if that's what you're thinking. Man, you're sick."

"Look around," said Jo, gesturing to the graves. "The world is fucking sick."

"Always was." Daryl swung the shovel over his shoulder and started for camp. Jo knelt by Amy's grave and wrote three letters in the dirt, _I'll see ya_. The rain would inevitably wash away the epitaph. She turned her back on the graves and limped after Daryl.


	6. Bee Balm

The dead hadn't been buried long enough to take root before Rick summoned the group to decide their next move. As Rick shared his intention to head for the CDC to those who didn't already know, Jo whispered to her brother. "Did you talk to Shane?" Lee nodded, but didn't look at her. "What do you think, then?"

Glenn shushed her. She shot him a glare, but Shane spoke before she had a chance to snap at him to move along if they were bothering him. "I've been, uh," began Shane. His eyes darted to Jo and then quickly darted away. "I've been thinking about Rick's plan, everybody. Now look, there are no guarantees either way. I'll be the first to admit that. I say the most important thing here is we need to stay together." He looked to Jo again. She stared back at him, stunned by what he was saying. "So those of you that agree, we leave first thing in the morning?"

"Okay?" said Rick. A few people nodded. The group disbanded to pack and whisper to each other. Jo, however, remained frozen. She narrowed her eyes at Shane. At least he had the decency to look away in shame. So this was how he gave his answer? In front of everyone, without speaking to her first?

"Go away," she snapped at Glenn.

Glenn took one look at her scowling face and scurried off, leaving her alone with her brother. She rounded on him. "You knew his decision already?"

"Yeah," admitted Lee.

"You agree with him? You think we should stay with these people?"

Lee scuffed his shoe against the ground. "Shane said some things that made sense, that we can't keep running away."

"We don't need these people," said Jo. "We don't need Shane. It's always been the two of us."

"Look where that's gotten us," said Lee. She hadn't shed a tear as she smothered her mother, or when she wrenched a piece of shrapnel from between her ribs, or as she watched Andrea drag her sister into a shallow grave. But now her eyes stung.

"I did my best for you," she said. "Always, I did my best."

"I know," said Lee, kicking at the ground still. "If we stay with them, it won't all be on you."

Jo wiped her eyes on her sleeve. She had never let him see her cry. "Fine," she said stiffly. "We stay. It's what you want, so it's what we'll do."

"Jo, I-"

"Get packing," she said, cutting him short. He'd said enough.

Jo escaped to the woods and kept going until she couldn't hear camp. The tears came. She braced herself against a pine tree. She really had tried her best for him, but obviously her best wasn't good enough. Maybe he was right, she couldn't protect him alone in this world. She couldn't protect anyone.

* * *

Lee was with Shane, patrolling the perimeter. In a single day, he'd pulled a 360, from keeping his distance to leaping right into the thick of things. Whatever Shane had said to him, the words stuck. His bags were packed and ready on his side of the tent. Jo's clothes were still strewn all over. She picked up a pair of tangled jeans.

She didn't give a damn what Shane had said to her brother. What the fuck did he know, anyhow? He acted like their father, but he wasn't kin. She threw the jeans across the tent. Her eyes flicked to Lee's bag. She felt a prick of guilt as she unzipped the front pouch and found exactly what she was looking for; a dirty sock. Rolled up inside the sock was a pipe and a dime of weed. She spread the contents onto her lap and packed the pipe good.

Jo inhaled. The smoke stung her throat. She muffled her coughing against the crook of her arm. The tent quickly became a sauna, hot as hell, and full of thick, white smoke. She tried to blow rings, but couldn't remember how. The pain in her side, and her head, and her feet, and all over, didn't go away, but it became bearable. One more hit and she was okay.

She needed to walk, to steal a breath of fresh air, before her head exploded. Camp was dead quiet. Suddenly, she craved those little plastic-wrapped snacks from the gas station, and speaking of sweet, as soon as she exited the tent, her gaze was drawn to Dixon's motorcycle in the moonlight. She whistled low as she approached the bike. It was a beauty, a bona fide Triumph Chopper. She'd never seen one off the cover of a magazine.

There was no light on in Daryl's tent. She double-checked before she stroked the well-worn leather seat, and she remembered being sixteen, riding bitch on Luke McGinty's Harley, no helmet, wind in her hair. She used to let go of his waist and pretend she was flying. Jo couldn't resist climbing onto Dixon's bike. She wanted that feeling of being sixteen, just for a while.

Jo closed her eyes, imagined she was on an endless stretch of road, driving away from it all. Then someone caught a fistful of her t-shirt and yanked her backwards off the seat. She grabbed the tail pipe to steady herself, the bike teetered, and Daryl growled in her ear, "Watch it." He pushed her aside, putting himself between her and the bike. "You think it's alright to mess with my stuff?"

"No," muttered Jo. "I only wanted...I…" She fumbled for a lie and came up short. Daryl shined his flashlight in her face.

"You stoned?" he said.

Jo shielded her bloodshot eyes with her hand. "No."

"You are," said Daryl, lowering the flashlight. "I can smell it on you."

"So what?" she snapped. "Ain't your business what I do."

"As long as you don't touch my things." Daryl turned his back on her and marched over to his tent. She trailed along behind him.

"Is it yours?" she said.

"What?" he said, scowling over his shoulder at her.

"The bike, dumbass."

"It was Merle's," he said, before unzipping his tent and disappearing inside. Jo came close enough to peak at the mess within. "You want something?" said Daryl.

"Nah," said Jo, straightening up. She turned to leave, shuffled halfway to her tent, when Daryl called out to her.

"You need something for the pain?" She turned slowly, cocked her head, and raised an eyebrow. "Your side," said Daryl, gesturing to his own ribs, "and your face. I got something stronger than weed."

"And I ain't got nothing to trade," said Jo. "So if you expect me to fuck you for-"

Daryl disappeared again. He emerged from the tent a moment later, marched up to her, and held out his fist. "Take 'em," he said, uncurling his fingers from the two white pills in his palm. "They're not mine, anyway."

"Merle's?" said Jo. Daryl nodded. She swiped the pills and tossed them back, swallowed dry. Her pain was Merle Dixon's fault. She figured he owed her the relief. Daryl sat in front of his tent and set to sharpening his knife. Jo stretched out on the ground nearby. She felt him glance at her every now and then, but he didn't speak, and he didn't tell her to go.

"You coming to Atlanta?" she said.

"Looks that way," said Daryl.

Grass tickled the back of her neck. There were so many stars winking down at her. She felt the pills kicking in, a gentle fizzing in her toes and fingertips. Soon there was no pain at all. The stars made her dizzy, so she closed her eyes against them.

"You falling asleep?" said Daryl.

"No," she murmured. Less than five minutes later, she was out cold.

* * *

"Is she dead?"

"I don't think so."

Something tickled Jo's face. She scrunched her nose, rolled over, and was greeted by the smell of dry, summer dirt.

"See, she's alive."

Jo cracked open her eyes to glare at Carl and Sophia, who were standing shoulder to shoulder a few feet away. Carl held out a long, leafy branch, which he had been prodding her with. "What are you doing?" he said.

"Sleeping," grumbled Jo. "Least I was."

"Yeah, but why are you sleeping outside of Dixon's tent?" said Carl. Jo winced as she propped up onto her elbows. Her back was stiff as a washboard.

Lori rescued her from the boy's interrogation. "What are you two doing?" she said, marching on the children.

Carl dropped the branch. "Nothin'," he said.

"Uh huh," said Lori, hands on her hips. "Go on and help your dad. Keep out of trouble."

Sophia took Carl's hand and led him away. "I'm watching you," Lori called after them, before turning to Jo with an apologetic smile. "Sorry about him. Boys, you know?"

"Yeah," said Jo, spotting Lee across camp, helping Shane load the jeep. "I know." Their tent had already been taken down. Lee must've finished packing for her. "Breakfast?" she said, glancing at the cold fire pit.

"No time," said Lori. "Dale's been handing out granola bars."

Jo locked her arms around her legs and buried her face between her knees. She felt sick whenever she moved.

"Rough night?" said Lori. Jo shrugged. She waited for Lori to go away and was disappointed when she didn't. After a minute or two, Jo peered up at her.

"Rick sees you as family," said Lori, as if she'd been working up to saying it for a long time. "It used to make me jealous, how much time he spent with you and your brother, when Carl and I were already living on scraps of time with him. I don't know if that makes me a bad person."

"Nah," said Jo.

Lori smiled again, hesitantly. "I know me and Carl make you uncomfortable. I know you never wanted to meet us and, to be honest, I wasn't interested in meeting you."

Jo winced, not from the pain this time. "It wasn't nothing personal," she said. "I just-"

"Let me finish," Lori cut her off. "I was stupid back then. I judged you and I had no right to. For what it's worth, I'm glad you're coming with us."

Jo was speechless. She wasn't particularly glad to be going with them. She had never cared about Lori's opinion of her and she still didn't. "Think I'll get one of those granola bars," she muttered, "before they're all gone."

On her way to the RV, however, she saw Andrea, and immediately changed direction. The clearing looked almost the same as when they'd first arrived. There was a stale Pop-Tart in the front pouch of her bag, if only she knew where her bag was. She had been saving it for Amy's birthday. Not much of a present, but better than a stick in the eye.

"We already put your stuff in the jeep," said Shane, coming up behind her. Jo crossed her arms and glared up at him.

"Well?" she said.

"Well what?"

She punched his shoulder hard.

"Alright, I'm sorry," said Shane, holding up his hands. "I shouldn't have gone behind your back with Lee, but we both know you wouldn't have listened to a goddamn thing I had to say. You never do."

"You had no right," said Jo.

"All I did was talk to him," said Shane. "I didn't force his hand at anything."

"You tricked me," she snapped, turning away from him. Without looking back, she stomped to the jeep and pried her bag out from under the bottom of the pile.

"You running off on your own?" said Shane, following her. "You just gonna leave your brother behind like that?"

Jo swung her bag into his stomach. "You won!" she said. "I'm going to the damn CDC, but understand this, I ain't burying any of these people, and I ain't burying you."

"No one else is gonna die," said Shane. Jo rolled her eyes as she shouldered past him. Bullshit. It was only a matter of time. She refused to look at any of them as she made her way to Daryl Dixon's truck and leapt into the passenger seat.

"Out," he said.

Jo stared straight ahead. She wasn't riding with Shane and Lee, Rick's car was full, and Jim was screaming in agony in the RV.

"I'll drag you out," said Daryl.

Jo shrugged. She waited for him to carry out the threat. From the corner of her eye, she saw his hands clench around the steering wheel. After a minute, he started up the truck. "Better keep your mouth shut," he muttered.

No problem. She slumped down into her seat and scowled out the window as they fell in line behind the RV. She closed her eyes as they drove past the graves, as if they could ever really leave their dead behind them.

* * *

The closer they got to the city, the more Jo couldn't keep still. She tapped the dashboard. Tap. Tap. TAP. Shane had been honest with her from day one. He never tried to pull the wool over her eyes, like the people from social services did. So why was he treating her like a little kid now? Tap. Tap. TAP. And Lee had forgiven her, it seemed, but he didn't trust her to make decisions anymore. Tap. Tap. Maybe he was right not to. Maybe she'd cracked and they were all too polite to tell her. TAP.

Daryl reached over and knocked her hand off the dashboard. He popped open the glove box, fished around until he found what he was looking for, a crushed box of Camel filters which he dropped into her lap. Jo lit a cigarette, rolled down her window all the way, and blew smoke at the never changing landscape of nothing and more nothing.

"How long you been clean?" said Daryl.

Jo took a drag, looked over at him, and exhaled. "Until last night, you mean?" He nodded. "A little over six months. Not much to brag about."

Daryl kept his eyes on the road. Was she really that obvious? Who else had pegged her for a junkie? She held the tip of her cigarette over her wrist, close enough to burn, but not close enough to scar. "I didn't know," said Daryl. "Last night, when I gave you them oxys, I didn't know."

"What gave it away?" she said.

"The tapping. Merle did the same thing. Same rhythm and everything."

Great, thought Jo. She flicked her cigarette butt out the window. So there was something she had in common with Merle Dixon. After awhile, without realizing it, she started tapping again. This time Daryl caught her wrist and didn't let go until she jerked free. "Fuck off," she said. The forest had turned into green fields. Daryl slowed as they passed a cow carcass being torn into by five or six walkers.

"He left you," said Jo. "He had a choice and he chose to leave you."

Daryl snatched the pack of Camels from her lap and lit up. "I know," he said, stepping on the gas.


	7. Wayside Plantain

The radiator hose had burst, putting a stop to the group's progress. "Can you jury-rig it?" said Rick. They were all gathered around the hood of the RV.

"That's all it's been so far," said Dale. "It's more duct tape than hose and I'm out of tape."

"I see something up ahead," said Shane. "Gas station, if we're lucky. Let me drive ahead and see what I can bring back."

"I'll go with you," said Lee.

Up to then, Jo hadn't been paying attention. She'd been leaning against the RV and watching a beetle crawl along the yellow line of the highway. When Lee volunteered, she straightened up.

"Guess I'll go, too," T-Dog was saying. "You'll need-"

Jo cut him short. "You ain't going," she said, looking straight at Lee.

"If he wants to go, let him," said Shane.

"Stay out of it, pig," she said, rounding on him. "You don't make decisions for him."

"Neither do you," said Lee. He stepped up beside Shane. Jo looked from one to the other.

"Fine," she snapped.

"Fine," said Lee. He spun on his heels and started walking. Shane lingered a moment, before shaking his head, and chasing after Lee. Jo watched them drive off in the jeep.

"They'll be okay," said Rick, putting his hand on her shoulder. Jo shook him off.

"People keep saying that," she said. Shane and Lee were gone now. "And awful shit keeps happening."

* * *

The silence was broken by Jim's intermittent screams. Jo heard him even with her fingers jammed in her ears.

"We should put him down," said Daryl.

Glenn lifted his head from his knees. "He isn't a dog."

"Nah, but he'll be a walker soon, and he wants to go."

"There might be someone at the CDC who-"

"Oh, just shut up," said Jo, taking her fingers from her ears. "It's loud enough without the two of you going at it."

Glenn wandered off in a huff. She wasn't sad to see him go. "Stupid kid," she muttered, laying down on the hot asphalt. Daryl loomed over her with his crossbow. "You trying to get a tan?" he said. "Cuz your pasty ass could use one."

Jo ignored him. Jim screamed and begged for mercy. Try as she might, she couldn't block him out.

"You ain't doing your brother a favor," said Daryl, "babying him like you do."

Jo opened her eyes and looked up at him. "Why does everyone around here feel the need to give me their goddamn advice, when I don't recall asking for it."

"All I'm saying," said Daryl, ignoring her sass, "is the day might come when you're not around to take care of him. He'll need to know how to get by."

Jo sat up. "I'm not Merle," she said, all jokes aside, blue eyes hard as diamonds. "I won't ever ditch him."

Daryl stared back at her, scrutinizing. "Nah," he said. "You ain't like Merle." He didn't go on to explain. She didn't ask him to. Instead, she got to her feet and stalked off, distancing herself from the RV, the screaming.

"Don't go too far, princess," Daryl called after her. Jo flipped him off without looking back. Princess, she thought, cringing inwardly. Her father used to call her that. _My princess, my baby, my stinging honey bee._

* * *

The boys returned, unscathed, and with a new radiator hose. Dale and Glenn immediately set to work. There were only a few hours of daylight and a plenty of miles still to go. No one wanted to be stuck overnight on the highway. Although being stuck in Atlanta overnight wasn't any more appealing.

Most of the group was gathered by the jeep, discussing the situation with Jim. Jo sat some distance away. They'd been arguing for a good fifteen minutes. She refused to join in, though she stole glances at Lee. His face kept switching between tears and anger. Shane put his hand on the boy's shoulder. Lee broke from the group and started walking away. He didn't go far before he just stopped, facing Atlanta. Jo assumed a decision had been made and that her brother wasn't pleased with it.

Not my problem, she thought. Jim wasn't screaming at the moment. She was trying to enjoy the silence, but it was somehow worse. Shane's boots appeared in her periphery. She kept her eyes on her lap.

"Remember those couple of weeks y'all came to live with me?" he said.

Of course she remembered. When the court finally ordered them home, Shane promised to fight it. You don't have to go back, he had said. If they'd stayed, however, he would've lost his job. She had not wanted to take responsibility for that.

"Best weeks of my life," said Shane. "I never pegged myself for a family man, but that house felt so empty after y'all left. There was just too much space, you know."

Jo didn't want to think about that time. She also remembered limping for a month afterwards. The beating wasn't because she'd run away. Her father didn't give a damn about her. Nah, he'd broken two of her ribs because she'd dared to take his son from him.

"We're leaving Jim here," said Shane. "Lee's pretty torn up about it."

"Then talk to him," said Jo.

"I'm not who he needs." Shane nudged her foot with the toe of his boot. "Go on."

Jo looked up at him. "I'm not good at this," she admitted. "I'm not good for him. Not anymore. Maybe I never was."

"That's what this is about?" said Shane. He crouched before her, putting them close to eye level. "Listen to me, girl, you got your brother this far. I ain't just talking about now, the way things are, but the ugly before all this. Now I don't always agree with you, he won't either, that doesn't mean we don't need you." Shane rose from his crouch and held out a hand to her. Jo took it. She let him lift her up.

"What do I tell him?" she said.

"The truth," said Shane.

In this world, even in the world before, she wasn't exactly sure what the truth was. So when she came up to Lee, she didn't say anything. She stood beside him and stared at Atlanta. Eventually, he did the speaking for her. "It's not right," he muttered. "We can't just leave him to die."

"It's a kindness," said Jo.

Lee whipped his head around to face her. Poison bled into his eyes. "Like Mama?" he said.

"Yes," said Jo. She didn't blink. She didn't run away or seek shelter from his accusations. "You really want to be a part of this group, don't you?"

Lee looked away from her and nodded. His lips pressed together in a razor thin line. "I ran," he said. "And people died."

"People are gonna die whatever you do," said Jo. She stepped in front of him, putting herself between him and Atlanta. "Look here, you can be part of this group, if that's what you need, but don't go thinking the more the merrier. If you make these people your people, then you're going to have to make hard decisions, and there ain't always a right and a wrong. Sometimes there's just…" She trailed off, unsure where she'd been going with the speech.

"Kindness," Lee finished for her.

"Yeah," she said.

"I still don't like it."

"Trust me," said Jo, "you never will."

For awhile, they stood in silence, side by side, Atlanta still a hundred miles away, and god only knew what waited for them at the end of the road. "Almost forgot," said Lee, reaching into his pocket. "Got these for you." He tossed a pack of cigarettes at her.

"Thanks," she said, taking the smokes as a peace offering. Together, they walked back to the jeep. When Jo climbed into the passenger seat, Shane didn't say anything. He didn't need to. They were family. As they rolled past Jim, he raised his hand, a final goodbye.

* * *

Shane did his best to drive around the bodies, but there were so many of them littering the private streets of the CDC complex. With every bump, Jo convinced herself they'd run over some roadkill, that's all, definitely not human corpses.

"Looks like the military was here," said Shane.

"No shit," muttered Lee, staring at a tank as they inched past.

The bodies became thicker, and thicker, until the ground was too thick with them to drive over. Shane cut the engine, bringing the rest of the caravan to a halt behind them. "C'mon," he said, throwing open his door. Jo and Lee exchanged wary looks. She grabbed his arm and dug in her nails.

"Whatever happens," she said, "you stay beside me."

For once, Lee didn't argue. He nodded, obedient and trusting, like when he was a kid. Still clutching his arm, they joined the others. The group made their way through a garden of steaming entrails and dismembered limbs, towards the futuristic building which might be, but probably wasn't, their salvation.

"Keep moving," hissed Shane, herding Carol and Sophia into the middle of the pack. Andrea's shoulder brushed against Jo's. She felt Glenn breathing down her neck and heard him muttering, "oh god, oh god," as he stumbled on her heels. They were close, so close. But to what? Another dead end, thought Jo, when the group reached a shuttered, metal door. The front wall of the CDC was a sheet of black glass, reflecting the corpse-strewn lawn, and giving no glimpse of what was within.

"Keep it together," said Shane, sounding two seconds from cracking up himself. He beat his fist on the metal door. Panic spread in less than a second. They were too exposed here, the sun was going down, and the dead were everywhere.

"There's nobody here!" said T-Dog.

"Then why are the shutters down?" said Rick, banging on the metal door.

"Walkers!" Daryl signaled the alarm. Jo turned in time to see him take down one of the dozen or more walkers ambling towards them.

"Baby, come on," said Lori, clutching Rick's arm, trying to drag him away from the door. He wouldn't budge.

"You led us to a graveyard!" shouted Daryl, putting down another walker. He knocked another arrow and fired before the body even hit the ground.

"Fort Benning," said Shane. He forced himself between Rick and the door. "It's still an option man."

"On what?" said Andrea. "No food, no fuel…"

The walkers were closing in. Keeping hold of Lee's arm, Jo slid the hunting knife from its sheath. "Beside me," she reminded him. He nodded again. The first walker slipped past Daryl and caught Sophia by the hair.

"Mama! Mama!" the girl screamed. Remembering all the times she had screamed the same damn thing, in that same terrified way, Jo speared the walker through the back of the head. Carol wrenched her daughter away from the corpse.

"We gotta go," said Jo. She found her brother's hand again. "With or without Rick." But when she took a step, Lee didn't move. She tugged his arm like he was a dog on a leash.

"No," he said, no longer childlike and obedient.

Jo wanted to sling him over her shoulder and run, and run, and keep running until Atlanta was a million miles behind them. Everyone else could die. Even Rick, even Shane. She would leave them all behind if it meant keeping her brother safe. He was too tall, however, for her to carry him, and she would never leave him.

"The camera!" said Rick. "It moved!"

"You imagined it!" said Shane. He let go of Rick to gather Lori and Carl close to him. "It's dead, man. It's just gears winding down."

"Lee," said Jo, staring wide-eyed and pleadingly at her brother. "You're killing us!" screamed Rick, pounding on the metal door. "Please, if you don't let us in, you're killing us!" In the time it took Jo to blink, the truth hit. There was no getting back to the cars now. Too many walkers had been drawn by the screams and the crash of fists on metal. Rick had as good as killed them. See, that was the problem with good men, always thinking with their hearts instead of their heads.

An arrow whistled past Jo's ear, missed Lee's shoulder by a hair, and brought down the walker creeping up behind him. Jo glanced at Daryl Dixon over her shoulder. He didn't notice. He had already traded his bow for a knife and thrown himself into the mob of rotting corpses. When Lee tried to run to his aid, she caught him by the arm and, this time, held on so tightly that her nails drew blood. T-Dog rushed past them. Together, he and Daryl began attempting to carve a path to the cars.

"Let me help," said Lee.

"You're killing us!" screamed Rick, again and again. Sophia and Carl were crying _Mama! Mama!_ Jo couldn't breathe. Her chest was as tight as a rubber band stretched around the circumference of the earth. She dug her claws into her brother's flesh. I won't let go, she told herself, I can't let go.

Then someone gasped behind her. Jo turned. Unbelievably, the door was rising. "Lee…" she said, breathless. The most blinding, whitest light fell over them all. People always say not to go into the light. Jolene Cash Jackson didn't give a damn what anyone said.

* * *

Jo felt like she was on a spaceship as the group moved along a long, metal hallway. Fluorescent light beamed down through the tiny holes in the ceiling. She had not let go of Lee's arm since entering the CDC. "Are we underground?" said Carol.

The doctor, who had introduced himself as Jenner, glanced back at them for the first time since telling them to follow him. Where? They didn't know. He looked at them, but didn't seem to see them. "Are you claustrophobic?" he asked Carol. She nodded. "Try not think about it," he said, turning back around.

Personally, Jo didn't much like the idea of being underground either. "Are you scared?" she whispered to her brother.

"Better to be on underground spaceship than dead out there," he whispered back to her with a shrug and half a smile. Despite her uncertainties, and the shock of coming from the mad world outside into this sterile and serene government facility, she completed his smile with a half one of her own. She had missed him so much when he hadn't been speaking to her. She had thought she'd lost him for good and never wanted to feel that way again.

Jenner stopped at a steel door. A red laser scanned his retina, followed by a series of beeps, and then the door rose. Jenner stepped through and was swallowed by the darkness. No one wanted to be the first to follow him into the dark. "After you," said Shane, gesturing Rick through. "This was your idea."

Rick squared his shoulders and entered. Jo squeezed her brother's hand before trailing in after. "Watch it," Daryl snarled, his voice close to her ear in the dark. "Sorry," she said, taking a step forward, only to walk into something solid. "Ow!" cried Glenn. "Sorry," she muttered a second time. "Just stand still," Lee hissed at her.

"Vi," said Jenner, and all of them hushed. "Bring up the lights in the big room."

A soft hum filled the darkness. Lee pressed against Jo's side. The hum made her feel like their underground spaceship was about to launch and she wasn't sure if she was ready. She closed her eyes when light flooded the room.

"Vi," said Jenner, "say hello to our guests. Tell them welcome."

"Hello guests," said a cool female voice. The voice of God, thought Jo, daring to open her eyes. There was no woman, and no God, just Jenner standing in the dead center of a big, circular room with black walls.

"Where is everybody?" said Andrea. "The other doctors, the staff?" She looked around as if she expected them to be hiding under the computer desks.

"I'm it," said Jenner. "Just me here. Oh, and Vi, the system interface."

Obviously, thought Jo. What was a spaceship, really, without the automated voice of god? She couldn't take her eyes off of the computers. It struck her that the internet was dead. A few weeks ago, she wouldn't have believed it possible. How could something so powerful, something that once connected the whole world and everyone in it, be gone just like that? No more Google, no more comment threads, no more videos of cats doing silly things.

"Who would like to go first?" said Jenner, brandishing a hypodermic needle. Once again, Rick stepped up. He sat across from Jenner in a rolling chair and stuck out his arm. The price of their admission had been to grant the doc permission to test their blood.

"What's the point?" said Andrea, when it came her turn. "If we were infected, we'd be running a fever."

Jenner taped a cotton bandage over the miniscule puncture hole in the crook of her elbow. "I've already broken every rule in the book letting you in here. Let me at least be thorough." He signalled for his next victim. Jo nudged Lee forward.

"Go," she said. "You wanted to come here."

"Didn't think there'd be no needles," said Lee. He looked faint. He had always hated getting shoots, even as a baby.

"It's only a little blood," she said.

"Then you go."

Jo rolled her eyes. The dead roamed the earth and, here he was, afraid of a little prick. She plopped down in front of Jenner, let him swab her skin with an alcohol wipe, and then stick a needle in her vein. "See?" she said, looking up at Lee. "Nothing more than a bee sting." But then she made the mistake of glancing at her blood, siphoned through the catheter, and the big, bright room turned on its side.

"You alright?" said Shane. Fine, she wanted to say, just fine. Instead, she slid out of the chair, unconscious.


	8. Touch-Me-Not

"The fish are really biting today," said Jo, reeling with all her might. The boat rocked dangerously. It was a strong fish, a big one, on the line. With one great tug, a human head broke the surface of the lake.

Jo stared in horror at what she'd dragged from the depths. "I'm sorry," she said, dropping to her knees to free the hook from Amy's lip. "I'm sorry, I didn't know it was you." She couldn't get the hook out. Amy's teeth sunk into her hand. Jo withdrew. Her knees hit the side of the boat and she went overboard. Just before she hit the water, she filled her lungs with air and…

Woke up.

"Just a bee sting, huh?" said Rick. He was sitting at the foot of the bed.

"Shut up," grumbled Jo. "How long was I out?"

"Not long."

Jo looked around. She barely noticed her surroundings and she didn't particularly care where she was. It was a small, white room with two narrow beds bolted to the walls on each side. "Lee's with the others," said Rick, knowing exactly what she was looking for. "He wanted to stay with you, but I sent him on. Jenner's fixed dinner for us."

Jo swung her legs out of bed. Her feet hit the concrete floor. "Hope it's not fish," she said, remembering her dream. She followed Rick out into the corridor. He seemed to know where he was going. Somehow, he always did. "How's your side?" he said, noticing her limp.

"Right as rain," she lied. It hurt like a bitch.

"Jenner could take a look."

"Nah," said Jo, shaking her head. "He's doing enough already." Truthfully, she didn't trust the man. There was something odd in his manner, how he looked at them without seeing, how cold his hands had been, and the way he spoke more naturally to his computer than to them, flesh and blood people. "What do you think about him?"

Rick thought a moment. "He saved us out there," he finally said, not much of an answer.

"Took him long enough."

Rick stopped suddenly and faced her. "I know you were against coming here, but I've got a good feeling about this place. Have I ever let you down before, Jolene?"

"No," she admitted. Silently, however, she thought about how that was then. Everything was different now. She pressed her fingertips to the steel wall and felt the hum of the generators. The cold lips of air conditioning kissed the back of her neck. She could practically feel hope radiating off of Rick, hot as the rays of the sun. "I trust you," she said. "But…"

"But?" said Rick.

"I ain't sure. I can't believe that this...this place...that we're safe. I can't believe such a thing as safe even exists anymore."

"We have to at least try," said Rick.

"Yeah," said Jo, sighing. "I guess." Still, she kept her doubts as they walked on. They came to a door at the end of a hallway that looked the same as all the others. Rick held it open for her. She was greeted by a wave of laughter when she stepped across the threshold.

"Yuck," said Carl, his little face all scrunched. "Tastes nasty."

Lori, chuckling, took the glass of wine from him. "That's my boy," she said, ruffling his hair as she smiled at her husband across the room.

Shane stood and offered his seat to Jo. "I've had my fill," he said, when she protested. "Go on, dig in."

She was hungry, but she didn't reach for any of the food. Instead she studied the group, all of them laughing and talking like a family, and there was her brother as if he belonged with them. He slid a bowl of mashed potatoes in front of her and grinned through a mouthful. "Saved ya some," he said. After taking her first bite, she momentarily forgot about everything else in the world. God, she had missed mashed potatoes. They were the box kind, but that was the kind she was used to. They tasted like home and she might as well have been sitting on the couch with Lee, watching their worn-out DVD of _20,000 Leagues Under the Sea_ , the only movie they owned, their father's favorite.

The wine flowed, so did the laughter. Jenner was the only one not drinking. He wasn't smiling, either. He watched them, reminding Jo that this was not home, this was not family. "It's seems to me," said Dale, raising his glass to Jenner, "that we haven't thanked our host properly."

"Booyah!" added Daryl, toasting with a full bottle of wine.

"Booyah!" T-Dog and Lee echoed, clinking their own glasses together, splashing themselves and Jo. A red stain spread across her lap and she set down her spoon, hungry no more. The toast ended, their bellies were full, and their pains had been dulled by the wine. They were safe, yet whenever she glanced at Jenner, she thought of what he'd said earlier, about being all that remained, and her blood ran cold.

"So," said Shane, breaking the contended silence, "when you going to tell us what the hell happened here? All the other doctors that were supposed to be figuring out what happened, where are they?"

"We're celebrating," said Rick. He reached for Lori's hand on the table. "We don't need to do this now."

Shane gripped the back of Jo's chair. His knuckles grazed her shoulders. "This is why we're here, right?" he said. "We're supposed to find all the answers, and instead we found him. Found one man. Why?"

The others now looked to Jenner as well. Who was he, this doctor? His expression had not changed. In a measured tone, he gave them what they were waiting for. "When things got bad, a lot of people just left, went to be with their families. When things got worse, when the military cordon was overrun, the rest bolted."

"Everyone?" said Jacqui.

"No, many couldn't face walking out the door, so they, um, opted out." His voice did not change. It was just as calm and detached. "There was a rash of suicides. That was a bad time."

No one was smiling now. "Dude," said Glenn, glaring at Shane. "You are such a buzzkill."

Jo looked to Rick. The hope in his eyes had dimmed, but it hadn't fled. She snatched Lee's glass of wine and drained every last drop. Then she took up a half-full bottle on the table. Better to drown in wine, she thought, than in hope.

* * *

Lee cut the deck of cards like a pro. "Where'd you learn that?" said Glenn, drunk and mesmerized.

A smug grin broke across Lee's face. "A dealer never reveals his secrets."

Jo took a swig from the bottle. Their father had taught him to shuffle and to play poker. He had taught her, too, though she didn't have the same gift for it. She peered at Glenn's hand over his shoulder.

"You ever played before?" she asked him.

"A few times," he said, staring blankly at the cards he'd been dealt. Jo pitied him. She took another gulp and wiped her mouth with her sleeve.

"You're about to get your ass kicked back to Chinatown," she declared.

"Don't give away the game," said Lee. His expression gave nothing away. He had been scamming money from drunks since kindergarten. The game was in his blood. That's what their father used to say as he counted out Lee's crumpled winnings.

"You're going to slaughter him," said Jo.

"I'm not Chinese," said Glenn.

She flicked him between the eyes. "Little slow on the draw, slick," she said. "What's the bet?"

"My jean jacket against his baseball cap," said Lee. He glanced up at her with another sly grin. "For now."

"Well," said Jo, leaping up from the bed. "Say goodbye to your hat, Mr. Not-Chinese."

"Where you going?" Lee called after her as she waltzed to the door. "I was going to deal in you on the next hand."

"Pass," she said. After all, she really didn't have anything to put in the pot. In the hall, she heard whispered voices behind closed doors and she hurried, weaving slightly, to the showers, where she could finally be alone.

The celebration was still going and probably would keep on while the wine lasted. What did it matter, really, all that the doctor had told them? Jo had never believed in any cure. She was content, for now, with a full stomach, a bed off the ground, and steel walls to keep out the walkers. Though there was no need in this place, she couldn't help from checking behind her every few seconds. Looking over her shoulder had quickly become a habit since the world ended. She didn't know how long they would stay, and she wasn't stupid enough to hope it'd be for very long, because good things never lasted, but she meant to enjoy what she could, while she could.

She shouldered open the door to the dorm-style bathroom. Steam engulfed her. She had always loved the sound of running water. Before Lee came along, she used to curl up on the worn bath mat like a dog whenever her mother took a shower. Sometimes they talked. Sometimes her mother sang, though she wasn't any good and only ever sang in the shower. Mostly, Jo would just listen to the water, falling like a sweet summer rain. She closed her eyes, soothed by the sound, the warmth, and almost heard her mother's tuneless singing.

Then she heard something else, something real, and something she did not want to acknowledge. A pair of bare feet stuck out from under the shower curtain. The pitter patter of water hitting tile was not enough to mask the sobbing, the gasping _ohs_ of unbearable loss.

Jo spun around and fled. She let the door slam on Andrea's grief. Her heart raced as she braced herself against the wall. This time, when she closed her eyes, she saw Amy's tennis shoes. She couldn't get those damn shoes off her mind. No, she thought, no, no. She finished off the wine, set the empty bottle on the ground, and walked away.

* * *

The mess hall was pitch black and deserted now. Jo felt along the wall for a light switch, but couldn't find it. "Yo Vi," she said. "A little help?" Vi did not respond. "Bitch," Jo muttered under her breath. After a minute more, she found the switch. When the lights came on, she momentarily forgot why she'd come here, and then she spotted the wine bottles on the table. She checked them one by one. There wasn't a drop left. She could still hear Andrea crying.

"Shut up," she said aloud as she climbed onto the counter to search the highest shelves. She'd take whatever she found, anything to stop the sobbing, to wipe the tennis shoes from her memory. _Oh Amy, oh Amy,_ Andrea moaned. Suddenly, her stomach turned sour. It was the wine, only she knew it wasn't, though she did not want to know. The feeling was guilt. But Andrea wasn't her problem. Let someone else pick her up off the floor. Let someone else care. Let there be something, anything, in these cabinets to help her forget, to let her float, blissful and light, for a little while.

 _Amy, I'm sorry. Amy, oh, Amy._ "Shut up!" screamed Jo, clamping her hands over her ears. "SHUT UP!"

"Who you screaming at?"

Jo spun in surprise, lost her footing on the narrow countertop, and crashed into Daryl Dixon. Their heads clunked together. She stumbled back into the counter with ringing ears. Daryl glared at her, rubbing at his forehead, which was bright red.

"Don't give me that face," said Jo. "It's your own damn fault for sneaking up on me."

"Wasn't sneaking," said Daryl. "Maybe you'd have heard me if you weren't yelling at ghosts."

Jo flushed as red as his forehead. She snatched the bottle from his hand and drank. Wine spilled down her throat, down her chin, onto her shirt. It wasn't enough. She was uncomfortably aware of the fact that they were underground, buried, like Amy. "We should've burned them all," she said, thinking now of worms in Amy's pretty, blonde hair and dirt in her mouth.

Daryl didn't ask what she was talking about. Maybe he knew. She didn't care. He was still standing close to her, too close. She put her hands to his chest, to push him away, but didn't. "You got anymore of them oxys?" she said instead. Daryl stepped back. His eyes narrowed to slits.

"Left 'em in the truck," he said. Jo slumped against the counter. Damn. She really could've used those pills right now. "Thought you was clean, anyhow."

She flapped her hand at him, as if sobriety was a nuisance to be swatted away like a bumblebee. She studied Daryl Dixon, his scowling face, and strong arms, and his calloused hands. "Stop staring at me," he said. She raised her eyes back to his. Drugs and alcohol weren't the only means of losing yourself for awhile. Amy, I'm so sorry. Amy…

"Shut up," she said, a whisper. Then she bridged the gap between them and reached for his belt. Daryl caught her wrist and pushed her away.

"I done told you, I aint got-"

"Yeah, I heard," said Jo. "You stupid or something? Do I gotta spell things out?"

He kept on staring at her. Whatever he was thinking, she couldn't tell. She didn't care. Rolling her eyes, she took off her shirt and let it drop to the floor between their feet. "I got three rules," she said, holding up three fingers. "No kissing, no names, and you can't come in me or on me." Her bra joined her shirt. Daryl's eyes dipped briefly to her little breasts and then back to her face.

"You got a lot of rules," he said.

"Sure, if you never learned to count past five," she said. She bent down to retrieve her shirt. "Forget about it. You're probably too drunk."

Daryl pushed her against the counter. "I ain't too drunk," he said. Jo flashed a grin. He still wasn't looking at her the way men usually did. There was no hunger in his eyes, no want. She wondered what it was that he needed to forget. Merle, maybe? She slipped a hand under the waistband of his jeans. A little hiss, like air leaking from a tire, escaped his tightly pressed lips. He was already hard.

"So," she said, still grinning, "you agree to the rules?"

He scowled and she squeezed. "Alright," he relented. She released him to work on undoing his belt. All the while, he didn't touch her. She felt his hot breath caress her nipples and shivered. Once his pants joined her's on the floor, she hopped onto the counter and spread her legs, but instead of coming closer, Daryl took another backwards step. This time his gaze lingered on the dark recess between her thighs. She hadn't been a virgin since she was twelve and she wasn't the sort to blush or feign modesty. Yet she was nervous, more nervous than she'd been when one of her father's friends popped her cherry after a drinking bender. No one had ever looked at her _down there_ like _that_. No one had looked _down there_ much at all. It was too intimate, too exposing, and she didn't much care for it, though for some reason she couldn't find her voice to tell him to get on with it.

Eventually, he got the message all on his own. Daryl filled the gap between her legs. "You need a warm-up?" he said. Just like that, the nerves were gone, and she laughed. "What?" he demanded.

"N...n...nothing," she said, tears beginning to spill over. Was she really laughing or was she just crying? Daryl looked at her like she was crazy. Maybe she was. She didn't bother explaining that no one had ever asked if she needed a warm-up.

"Nah, what's so funny?" said Daryl.

"Nothing," she said again. The laughter died. She touched his cheek, ran her thumb over his fine, blonde stubble. Nothing was funny, nothing at all. Right then and there, in that moment, she wanted to break her own rule, to kiss his wine-stained mouth. When had she last kissed someone on the mouth? She couldn't remember. She was going to kiss him. She leaned in, she closed her eyes, but their lips never met. She whispered, "I did it. I killed my mother." He had asked her once, by the lake, if it was true. Why she was telling him now, she didn't know. The truth, out in the open, was more intimate than a kiss.

She opened her eyes again and all she could see was Daryl Dixon's face. His blue eyes were as inscrutable as ever. If he thought she was a monster, he didn't show it. She waited for him to leave, to run as far from her as possible, to call her a crazy, murderous bitch. So she was not expecting it when he pushed himself inside of her. The first few thrusts were slow, but soon he was slamming into her. His hands gripped her hips, pulling her stitches taut, but the pain was good. In return, she dug her nails into his shoulders.

"Shit," said Daryl, pounding harder. Her head hit the cabinet behind her with each thrust. It didn't last long. "Shit, shit, I'm gonna-"

"Rules," Jo reminded him. She allowed him to get in one last sloppy thrust, before pushing him away. Daryl grimaced, holding his stiff cock like a bomb about to detonate. His eyes darted to her shirt.

"Don't you dare!"

Too late. He had already swiped up her shirt. With a final grunt, the deed was done. Jo leapt down from the counter. She quickly pulled on her pants, fastened her bra, and shoved past him. At the door, without looking back, she said, "Keep the shirt as souvenir, asshole."

* * *

Jo woke with a pounding headache, a dry mouth, and no idea what time it was, or if it was even morning. She looked at her broken wristwatch. It would always be 11:35, the exact minute she'd hit the pavement on the traffic-jammed highway into Atlanta, the exact minute Andrea and Amy had spotted her from the roof of Dale's RV. She wished she could take back that minute. She wouldn't have wandered off on her own, and then they never would've met the two sisters.

Lee was stretched out on the opposite bed with his feet dangling over the edge and Glenn's baseball cap drawn over his face. Glenn was on the floor. When Jo stepped over him, he lifted his head and blinked up at her with bleary eyes. He groaned when she opened the door, letting in the light from the hallway, and pulled his t-shirt over his face. "Turn it off," he muttered into the fabric.

Jo wanted to return to the cool, dark room as soon as she stepped into the hall, but she was dying of thirst. Her tongue was sour and fuzzy from the wine. Her injured side was on fire and her right leg dragged from the pain. She wondered when she had gotten so old.

"Sleep well?" said Dale, appearing from his room and falling into step beside her.

"Like a baby," she lied. Her dreams had been plagued by Amy and her mother.

"I doubt Jenner would mind taking a look at your side," said Dale. "I couldn't help but notice it seems to be troubling you."

"It's fine," said Jo. "I'm fine." She glanced at the old man from the corner of her eye. Who was he? After all they'd been through together the past few weeks, she still didn't know his last name, or where he came from, or if he had family somewhere out there. The air felt thin underground. The air would run out someday. She imagined suffocating down here with these people, these strangers.

"I'm concerned about Andrea," said Dale. Jo threw up a little in her mouth and swallowed the bile right back down. "She's in a bad place."

"Why you telling me?"

"Well, you spent a lot of time with Amy. She thought of you as a friend. I just thought it might do Andrea some good if you talked to her."

"She doesn't want to hear anything from me," said Jo. "And Amy wasn't my friend."

Feigning that she'd forgotten something in her room, she doubled back, escaping Dale. She passed her room, heading for the showers, hoping she might have better luck this time, but then she saw Carol and Sophia enter the bathroom, so she changed course again. She rounded a corner, bumped into T-Dog, rounded another corner, and there was Jacqui. They were everywhere, cockroaches in a maze.

Jo retraced her steps. Maybe Lee and Glenn had gone to breakfast by now and she could have the room to herself. She rounded yet another corner, getting dizzy, and stopped dead. At the other end of the hall, so did Daryl Dixon, the very last person she wanted to see. He approached, slouching a bit. His dark hair stood on end and his eyes were hooded. He opened his mouth to speak. She didn't wait to hear it.

"Last night didn't mean anything," she said. "It ain't happening again. I was drunk, that's all, so don't go getting any ideas."

"Would you feel better if I paid you?" said Daryl.

Jo wanted to slap him. She didn't have the energy, though, so she merely glowered. "Just don't tell nobody," she snapped. "About any of it, what happened, what I told you. Got that?"

"Another of your damn rules?" said Daryl.

"Yeah."

"Hold up," Daryl called after her once she was almost to the end of the hall. She turned back around, reluctantly, and found he hadn't moved an inch. "Why me?"

Jo rolled her eyes. Wasn't the answer obvious?

"Because you were there," she said.


	9. Extinguisher Moss

Lee shuffled into the room. Jo knew it was him, even facing the wall; his footsteps were as familiar to her as her own heartbeat. She squeezed her eyes shut, slowed her breathing, pretended to be asleep. "Thought you might be hungry," he said, unfooled. She smelled bacon, her stomach growled. "Brought coffee, too." Jo shot up and held out her hand for the mug. "Yeah, that's what I thought," said Lee, setting the plate on the bed. "You ought to eat something."

Jo took a sip of scalding hot coffee, but ignored the food. "Give Glenn back his hat," she said.

Lee lovingly stroked the tattered brim of the baseball cap. "No," he said. "I won it fair and square."

"Fair? He was drunk as a skunk."

"So was I."

Jo snorted. "You could beat the Devil himself drunk and blindfolded. Give back the hat."

"Why?"

She took another sip, then massaged the burnt roof of her mouth with her tongue. "Because," she said after a minute, "it must mean something to him. He's your people now, right? You don't cheat your own."

Lee frowned. He twisted the cap in his hands. "I hate when you're right," he muttered.

"Well, good for you, it don't happen often."

Lee pushed the plate closer to her. To appease him, she nibbled at a strip of bacon. It tasted just as good, all greasy and crisp, as the mashed potatoes last night, but it still went down like a rusty nail. "Why do you keep calling them my people?" her brother asked.

"You chose 'em," said Jo, looking over at him.

"Yeah, but their not just mine," said Lee. "They're yours, too."

Jo didn't respond. Lee huffed through his nose. "You're just as mule-headed as Daddy, you know that?"

Jo grinned at him over her coffee mug. If their father was dead, he was certainly rolling over in his grave at those words, screaming _traitor traitor_ six feet underground. Lee bumped his knee against her's. "You were right about this place," he said. He combed his fingers through his hair, just like Shane. "Doesn't look like we'll be sticking around long. The doc says the generators are gonna run out of fuel soon, said the whole place will be decontaminated then."

"What's that mean?" said Jo.

Lee shrugged. "Hell if I know." He looked back at her with a far-fetched hope in his eyes. "Maybe we could find more fuel, before-" And then the lights went out, casting them into sudden darkness. The hum of the generators died. "Or not," finished Lee.

Jo found his hand in the dark. "C'mon," she said. Together, they stumbled out into the hall Lee whipped out his flashlight to guide their way as they searched for the others. Just this morning, Jo couldn't get away from them, and now there was no one.

"Where'd they go?" said Lee. She didn't have an answer to give. The air condition had quit, but she felt colder than before. She sensed they were about to find out what the doc meant by decontamination and doubted she'd like the answer.

"We should go," she said.

"What?"

Again, without answering, Jo stole the flashlight from him and hurried back to their room. She snatched up their bags and was back with her brother in less than two minutes. When she pushed his duffel bag at him, he crossed his arms, refusing to take it.

"We need to find the others," he said.

"I don't like this," said Jo, low and rushed. "Does decontamination sound fun to you?"

"Might not be bad."

"Yeah, well, I don't think we should stick around to find out."

"Go if you want," said Lee. "I'm not leaving without Shane and Rick." He spun on his heels and continued on. Jo watched him until he was almost at the end of the hall. She was tempted to drag him out of this goddamn place, but he was bigger than her now, and he was right. She hated him for it, but that didn't change the facts. Shane and Rick had never walked away from them. Not once.

Jo caught up with her brother. "They'll be with Jenner," he said, unsurprised that she'd followed him. "In the-"

For a second time, he was cut short, by a shrill alarm. Jo covered her ears. "What the hell is that?" she screamed over the siren.

Vi's cool, automated voice swept over them. "Thirty minutes to decontamination." Lee broke into a run. Shit, thought Jo, limping after him as fast as she could. She lost Lee for a minute, found herself alone in the dark, and began to panic. Then there he was, sprinting for the big room with the computers. Jo caught a glimpse of Shane. Their eyes met for a second. "Go!" he yelled. "Get out!" Lee was less than a foot away when the door slammed down. Shane was gone.

"No!" cried Lee, throwing himself at the door. "Let us in! Let us in!"

"They can't hear you," said Jo, gasping for air. Lee ignored her and continued slamming his shoulder into the door. "That's solid steel!" She grabbed the back of his shirt. "There's no getting through."

Lee shook her off. "Not without Shane."

"He told us to go! You heard him, damnit, Lee."

"Shane! Let us in!"

Jo slumped against the wall and held herself tight, trying to contain the tremors running from top to toe, but it was no use. What now? What the hell was she supposed to do now? She closed her eyes. Mama, she thought, what do I do?

Vi spoke again. "H.I.T.s. High impulse thermobaric fuel-air explosion." Lee went still as he listened. His breathing was ragged, his cheeks flaming red, his eyes fixed on the ceiling, where Vi's voice seemed to be coming from. "Consists of a two-stage aerosol ignition that produces a blast wave of significantly greater power and duration than any other known explosive except nuclear."

"Why's it saying that?" said Lee. Jo blanched. It seemed Vi was God, after all, serving up their fate. This was Judgement Day and they were all going to burn.

"The vacuum pressure effect ignites the oxygen," Vi continued, "between 5,000 and 6,000 degrees, and is used when the greatest loss of life and damage to structures is desired."

Then silence. Lee's face turned to Jo, no hope in his eyes, only desperation, waiting for her to tell him what to do. Get out, she thought, get out, get out. Someone was banging on the other side of the door. Would he leave now that he knew exactly what was coming for them? Could she leave now that she knew? Could she let Shane and Rick be blown to bits? And the children…

Jo charged the door, crashed into it with the full weight of her body, and bounced back. She charged again, and again, knowing it was futile. Flesh and bone were no match against steel, but she didn't care anymore. Shane was on the other side, and Rick, and his little boy, and Andrea. They didn't deserve to burn. Not even Daryl Dixon. So what if she and her brother died here, throwing themselves at an impenetrable wall? If they left, if they lived, the guilt would never let them go. What was the point of running away, of surviving, if she felt dead inside?

Lee doubled over. Tears streamed down his cheeks. "Useless," he sobbed. Jo caught his face between her hands and forced him to look at her.

"We don't give up," she said. "We don't give up on our people." She took his hand and led him to the very end of the hall. They faced the steel door. "Together," she said, squeezing his hand, before breaking into a run.

They were a few feet from the door when it rose, but they'd built up too much momentum to stop. Jo collided into Daryl Dixon, knocking them both to the ground. Lee, right behind her, tripped over them and sprawled face-first down the entry ramp.

"I told you to go!" said Shane, hauling Jo to her feet.

"Not without you, pig," she said, smiling. For a moment there, she'd thought she would never see his face again, and she realized how much she needed him, how much she had always needed him.

"We got four minutes!" T-Dog shouted at them as he sprinted past. Neither Jo nor Shane needed to be told twice. They ran after the others, back down the hall, up a flight of stairs, then another, and another. Fuck Vi, thought Jo, no one is dying today.

The group surfaced into the sunlit atrium. Without slowing, Daryl raced towards the door and brought Dale's axe down against the glass, which might as well have been steel too. He didn't even make a crack, not the slightest hareline fissure. T-Dog went for the windows.

"Stay close, sweetheart," said Lori, as if her son needed to be told. He was clinging to her side like they were stranded at sea and she was his life vest. Lee, however, freed himself from Jo's grip and went to help the men. She let him go. It wasn't long before another hand took hold of her's. Startled, she turned, looked down, saw the little hand clutching her own. It was Sophia. Carol, holding the girl's other hand, was looking helplessly at her daughter, and Jo remembered her own mother looking at her and Lee in the same way.

She didn't bother with prayers, or tears, or screams. She wasn't even afraid anymore. Shane would get them out, somehow. Her eyes roamed the atrium and she noticed that not everyone was there. "Andrea?" she said, turning to Carol.

Carol didn't look away from her daughter when she answered, "She's staying."

Amy, oh Amy, I'm so sorry. Jo didn't think. She simply ran, back the way they had just come, back into the darkness, into the grave. "JO!" Lee screamed. She glanced back in time to see Shane catch him around the waist to keep him from following.

"Get him out!" she yelled over her shoulder. "You get him out of here!"

She sped out of the atrium, leaving the sunlight behind. Three minutes, she thought, plenty of time to drag Andrea from the fiery furnace of hell. No one was going to burn. No one else was going to die. She had turned her back on Andrea's grief, but she would not abandon her now.

The lights in the stairwell flickered, then died. This was it, the final countdown. Jo had only the handrail to guide her steps. The only sound was her own shallow breathing. Instinct urged her to turn around, go back, get out, but she kept going, deeper and deeper into the earth. Darkness pressed against her, squeezing her. How much time was left? Two minutes, one minute, ten seconds?

Jo picked up the pace. Her foot missed a step and she slid the rest of the way down, landing in a heap at the bottom of the winding staircase. Her cheek scraped against the rough concrete. There was an explosion above and she automatically threw her arms over her head, though the explosion was distant. This is it, she thought. Still, she wasn't afraid. That explosion, she was certain, meant that Shane had found a way to break the glass. They would be okay. Lee would be okay. Shane would take care of him.

"I'm sorry, Amy," she whispered, bracing for the fire. Sorry for missing your birthday, sorry for not reaching your sister in time, sorry for pretending you never mattered.

The fire didn't come. Instead, she heard heavy footsteps. She opened her eyes and was blinded by white light. She squinted at the figure holding the flashlight, expecting it to be Shane. "I told you to…" She trailed off, realizing that it was not Shane towering over her, but rather Daryl Dixon. He hauled her off the ground. As soon as he let go of her arm, he spun and started back up the stairs. Jo remained frozen. Daryl looked back, blinded her with the flashlight again. "We ain't got much time," he said.

Jo ignored him. She turned away from the light, yet again, and continued her descent. She didn't make it more than a few feet before Daryl caught her around the waist. "Let me go!" she said, kicking her heels against the floor, clawing at his arms. "ANDREA!" Her voice ricocheted off the walls. "ANDREA!"

"Dammit, woman," Daryl grunted, spinning her around like a rag doll. He shook her hard enough that her teeth rattled in her head. "She made her choice. Ain't nothing you can do."

Jo shoved him. She tried to run away from him again, but as soon as she turned, her feet suddenly left the ground. Everything went upside down when Daryl slung her over his shoulder. "Put me down!" she raged, beating her fists against his back. He didn't seem to feel it, but she kept on as the darkness stretched further and further between her and Andrea.

They burst once more into the atrium. Daryl's boots squealed against the shiny marble floor. Jo kept screaming at him to put her down until they came to the shattered window. Daryl flung her through without stopping. She threw up her hands just in time to catch herself before face planting on the concrete. Soon, Daryl was pulling her to her feet. His grip on her wrist was so tight she thought the bones might shatter.

The yard was swarming with walkers. Daryl let go of her to shoot down the Army geek closing in on their left. Jo glanced back at the CDC. There was no point going back now. It was too late. She saw Lee up ahead, in the Jeep with Shane, both of them screaming words she couldn't hear. Shane was doing all he could to hold Lee back.

"DOWN!" roared Daryl as another explosion hit. The ground shook. Jo felt she'd been hit by a tidal wave. The force of the explosion, so much worse than the first one, knocked the air from her lungs. For a moment, she found herself flying through the air.

Then nothing. No pain, no fire, just more darkness.

* * *

The crazy blonde was still unconscious. Daryl peered over at her every few minutes. A thin line of blood trickled between her eyes. Her face was covered by a fine layer of soot. Maybe she was bleeding in the brain or something. How was he supposed to know? When he looked back to the road, he caught a glimpse of angry, black smoke in the rearview mirror. Daryl didn't think anything of it. He was used to fleeing in the wake of mayhem and destruction, just a part of living with Merle, though he had never quite witnessed destruction on quite the same scale as the flaming heap of rubble he was leaving behind now. Look, he imagined Merle saying, that there is the wrath of god, baby brother.

The crazy blonde stirred and groaned, waking up. Daryl glanced at her again, saw that her eyes were open, and quickly looked away. A minute later, she said, "Guess this ain't Heaven, then."

Jo studied her soot blackened hands, expecting to find raw blisters, but it appeared they had escaped the fire unscathed. Well, relatively unscathed. She wiped the blood from her face. Gradually, it sunk in that she wasn't in hell, either. It was just Dixon's truck making that god-awful screech, not a chorus of devils, as she had first assumed in her semi-conscious state.

Andrea, she remembered, bolting up in her seat. She twisted around to look behind them. All she could see was smoke. "It's gone," said Daryl.

"Who the hell do you think you are?" she said, glaring at him.

Daryl winced. He liked her better when she was unconscious. "The person who just saved your stubborn ass."

Jo punched his arm.

"You're welcome," he said. She went to punch him again. This time, he blocked her.

"I'm not thanking you," she snarled, scooting as far away from as she could. "Andrea's dead and it's your fault."

Daryl was also used to people blaming him for their own shit. "She ain't dead," he said.

"But-?"

"Old man got her out, no help from you."

"If you hadn't dragged me out of there, then-"

"You'd be the dead one."

Jo slumped back down into the seat and scowled at her knees. She felt like an idiot now. This was her second rescue mission that had, literally, gone up in flames. When she finally spoke again, once the smouldering remains of the CDC were far behind them, her voice was quieter, less bitter. She was too tired to sustain her own anger. "Why?" she said.

"Why what?" said Daryl, though he knew.

"You risked your life, for me, so why?"

Daryl stole another glance. Her blue eyes were dark with mistrust. She was drumming her fingers on the dashboard, just like before. He really hated that sound. It reminded him too much of Merle. After a few minutes, when he still hadn't answered, she quit drumming. "What, you think I'll be your woman now, because you saved me? Because it don't change nothing. I already told you that last night-"

"You weren't that good of a lay," said Daryl. "Definitely not worth dying over."

Jo stared at him hard. It didn't make a lick of sense, his coming back for her. Men like Dixon were all the same. They didn't give without taking. "Why?" she said again, beyond frustrated.

Daryl didn't have an answer, not one he could put into words. He had never been much good at explaining himself. All he knew was that he'd been curious about her since that very first night at camp, when she'd flung herself at Merle, all hell hath no fury. He'd never seen a woman go after Merle like that. The memory filled him with the same horror and fascination he'd felt watching the CDC collapse.

Jo accepted that she wasn't going to get an answer out of him, at least not today. She looked to the dusty road ahead. The RV was rambling along directly in front of them. Without asking, she fished for the pack of cigarettes in the glovebox, lit two, and then passed one to Dixon.

"Thank you," she said. The word slipped out unintended.


	10. Tread-Softly

Fort Benning was still a hundred miles away when the RV's radiator hose quit for good. "Well," said Shane, gesturing at the miles upon miles of abandoned cars on the highway, "if we can't find a new hose here…"

"There's a whole bunch of stuff we can find here," said T-Dog. "I can siphon more fuel for a start."

"Maybe some water," added Carol hesitantly.

"Or food," said Lee, rubbing his stomach.

"I don't know how I feel about this," said Lori. She looked ahead, her hand to her head, shielding her eyes from the noonday sun. "This is a graveyard."

 _The whole damn world is a graveyard,_ thought Jo.

"Come on, y'all," said Shane, "Just look around, gather what you can."

As the group broke apart to scavenge, Jo lingered by the RV. She stared at the curtained window. Andrea was inside. She hadn't come out when they stopped and Jo was...relieved. She'd almost gotten herself killed, running back into the CDC to save the woman, and now she dreaded actually having to face her again.

"Stay close to Shane," she told her brother, before setting out on her own. She needed a minute alone, to think, or to not think. As she walked through the abandoned cars, she felt light-headed, but it wasn't from the hunger, or the thirst, or the exhaustion. The feeling was almost like being drunk again. So much had happened so fast. She was disoriented. It didn't seem possible that she'd woken up that morning in a bed with clean sheets and hoping that maybe, just maybe, they'd found a sanctuary.

And now here she was, back on the road, surrounded by dead things. One hundred miles to Fort Benning. Then what? Where would they go after that? Because she didn't believe there'd be anything more for them in Fort Benning than there'd been at the CDC.

Jo wandered farther and farther from the group, until she couldn't hear them anymore, until she couldn't see them, and she kept going, until she couldn't anymore. She was bruised, battered, and burned. Her head ached so fiercely that she doubled over to vomit. A watery glob of yellowish bile was all that came out. After a few more seconds of dry heaving, she collapsed into the passenger seat of a little Honda that once had been white and was now yellow with pollen. She didn't need a doctor to tell her that she had a concussion. It wasn't her first, not by a long shot, and she recognized the symptoms.

Once the worst of the nausea passed, Jo surfaced from her knees and decided she might as well search the car while she was here. The driver's seat was empty. She checked the back. No one and nothing, except for a blood splattered carseat. Feeling sick again, she faced forward and popped open the glovebox. Inside there were a few coffee stained receipts, the registration for the car, and a half-melted peppermint, all of which she dumped out onto the floorboard.

Buried underneath it all was a wallet-sized photograph of two little girls, twins, with their freckled arms wrapped around each other's waists. One of them smiled at the camera. Her two front teeth were missing and her tongue poked out from the hole. The other girl gazed at her sister with a look of childish adoration. Jo wasn't sure what it was about the picture that drew her in, holding her captive to a lost moment that didn't belong to her. How long ago had the picture been taken? Where were the twins now, dead and buried, dead and walking? Or were they still alive somewhere? Searching for their parents, maybe, or searching for each other?

Jo finally tore her eyes away from the picture, glanced up, and saw a cluster-fuck of walkers shuffling straight towards her. Somehow, she hadn't heard the snarling of their approach, but now that she saw them, the sound was deafening. Just before the first rank of the dead reached the white Honda, she pulled the passenger door closed, careful not to make even the smallest noise, and then crawled between the front seats. She curled up on the floorboard, her knees clutched to her chest, and bit her lip, waiting. A shadow fell over her, then another, and another, until the herd of walkers was so thick around the car that they blocked out the sunlight altogether.

The windows were too coated in pollen to see them clearly, which meant they couldn't see her either. Still, she hugged her knees closer to her chest, trying to make herself small. One word played over and over again in her head. _Lee._ He was with Shane, though, so he must be safe. She had to believe that, otherwise she wouldn't be able to stop herself from leaping out of the car, headfirst into a sea of the dead. Every second stretched into an agonizing eternity.

Then it was over. She knew she should wait a few minutes, just in case, but she couldn't. She kicked open the door, tumbled out onto the hot pavement, and ran. It took every ounce of self-control she had not to scream her brother's name and bring the whole herd right back. When she glanced over her shoulder, she could still see them, a dark mass moving slowly away.

Jo didn't stop running until she spotted the RV, but none of the others were there. Panicking, she jerked her head this way and that, scanning the highway for a sign of life, and she found the others off to the side, by the guardrail. The fist around her heart let go at the sight of her brother. Then she noticed Carol kneeling in the grass and staring out at the woods, tear tracks cutting through the dirt on her cheeks, trembling with Lori's arms around her.

Before Jo could ask what had happened, not that she particularly wanted to know, Shane pounced on her. He caught hold of both her arms and squeezed. "Don't ever go off like that again," he growled, shaking her a little. Jo tried to push him off, but he only gripped harder.

"Easy now," said Dale. "She's alright."

Shane still did not let go. Jo couldn't hold his gaze. She couldn't stomach the guilt of seeing how scared he was, not when she was already queasy from the concussion, so she turned back to Carol and Lori. Glenn and Lee stood close by them, looking uncertain as to what they should do, what they could do, if anything. Carl was staring off into the woods, too, glancing every few seconds to his mother.

"Where's Rick?" said Jo. Shane finally let go of her. Like everyone else, he looked to the woods, but didn't answer.

"He went after Sophia," said Dale.

Jo pointed to the trees. "In there?" She took a step forward. Shane caught her arm again and shook his head.

"We wait," he said.

"But-"

"We wait."

"He's right," said Dale. "It's the best thing to do. There's no sense in more of us getting lost in the woods. Right now, we stick together, we wait for them here."

Jo didn't like waiting, not one bit, but she knew Rick could take care of himself in the woods. After all, hadn't he found his family against all odds? Tracking down a scared little girl should be a piece of cake. Looking around again, she noticed that Rick and Sophia weren't the only ones missing.

"Where are T-Dog and Dixon?" she said. Shane didn't seem to hear her. Again it was Dale who answered.

"We don't know."

Jo squared her shoulders. "Alright then," she said. "I'm going to find them."

"Dammit, Jolene, I already-"

She didn't let Shane finish. "I'm not just going to stand here. You can wait around until Judgement Day, if you want." She spun around to face Dale. "Which way did they go?"

* * *

Jo hadn't gone far when Lee caught up to her. They didn't speak. She almost told him to go back, wait with the others, but she felt better with him beside her now. Besides, she worried he might sneak off into the woods after Rick. Better to keep an eye on him.

It wasn't long before they spotted Daryl and T-Dog meandering towards them. Even from ten feet away, Jo knew something was wrong. She glanced at Lee, but he was already gone, sprinting ahead, so she hurried after him. When she was close enough to see the blood, however, she caught a fistful of Lee's shirt and stepped in front of him. T-Dog's shirt was drenched crimson, so was the strip of fabric bound around his forearm. She fixed her eyes on Daryl. Her hand hovered over the hilt of her knife.

"Was he bit?" she said. Daryl shook his head.

"Got cut on a damn piece of metal," said T-Dog. "It's nothing."

Jo eyed him up and down. That was a whole lot of blood for nothing. T-Dog looked like he might faint if Daryl let go of him. "Come on, then, let's get you patched up," she said, letting her hand drop from the knife hilt.

Together, they slowly made their way back to the others. Jo let her brother fill them in about Sophia. She was certain Rick and the girl would be back by now. Sure enough, Rick was there, speaking to the group, and she felt a moment of relief before they came close enough to hear what he was saying. "I thought she'd come back here. I told her to keep the sun on her left shoulder."

Carol broke free from Lori's hold and made a break for the woods. Shane caught her before she reached the guardrail. "My baby!" wailed Carol, reaching towards the woods. "Sophia! Sophia!"

"We'll find her," said Shane. He forced Carol to look at him. "We will."

Carol collapsed, sobbing, against his chest. He looked to Rick, and then Rick turned to Daryl. Before he even spoke, Daryl nodded. He glanced up at the sky and Jo knew what he was thinking. There wasn't much daylight left. "Better get a move on," he said. He'd let go of T-Dog, who immediately crumbled to the pavement, breathing heavily.

"I'm going, too," said Lee.

"You're not," said Jo. His mouth popped open to argue, but she didn't give him the chance. "T-Dog needs you more. Stay here and stitch him up."

"But-"

"I'll go with them," said Jo. "We'll find her, okay?"

Lee's eyes darted to T-Dog. Sweat beaded his forehead. Blood continued to seep through the makeshift bandage around his arm. "Okay," he relented.

The matter settled, Jo caught up to the others at the guardrail and clambered over. No one said anything about her presence. No one tried to stop her, though she wished, this time, that they would. Her head still throbbed, her body ached in every nook and cranny, but she knew the only way to keep Lee from venturing into the woods was if she went herself, so she fell into step beside Glenn in the rear of the pack.

Carol's sobs stalked them into the shade of the trees.

* * *

They didn't call for Sophia. They didn't know how many more walkers were nearby. "I've never seen that many together like that," whispered Glenn. He kept pace with Jo while the others moved further ahead, disappearing through the trees for a moment, but never lost from her sight for long.

"Bet they came from Atlanta," said Jo. It was just as Dale had said back at the quarry, a million years ago it seemed; the geeks were running out of food in the city, they were migrating. Glenn's head swivelled constantly as he looked to every sound- a chirping blue jay, a falling tree limb, the buzz of a bumblebee. Just watching him glance this way, then that way, over here, and over there, was making her dizzy. Jo kept her eyes fixed straight ahead.

They'd been walking for maybe an hour when Daryl stopped. He crouched low to the ground. "She was doing fine till right here," he said. "All she had to do was keep going, but she veered off that way." He gestured away from the highway.

"Why would she do that?" said Glenn. Jo slumped against the mossy trunk of an oak. She was winded, though they'd been walking at a steady pace, and her legs felt like tubes of styrofoam.

"Maybe something spooked her," said Shane. "A walker?"

"I don't see any other footprints," said Daryl. "Just her's."

"So what do we do?" said Shane. "All of us press on?"

Glenn's eyes flicked to Jo and she saw concern ripple across the smooth planes of his face. He seemed to be the only one who'd noticed that she was struggling. She ignored him.

"No," said Rick, "better if you and Glenn get back to the highway. People are gonna start panicking. Let them know we're on her trail, doing everything we can. But most of all, keep them calm."

Shane nodded. "I'll keep 'em busy scavenging cars." Then, turning to Glenn, he said, "Come on."

Glenn hesitated. "Maybe you should come back with us," he said to Jo. She shook her head and felt her brain sloshing around against her skull. Her lips were pressed tight into a thin white line of determination. She couldn't go back empty-handed. She'd promised her brother they'd find the girl. She was here so that he didn't have to be and she would keep going. _If they're his people now,_ she reminded herself, _then they're mine too._

After a moment, when she didn't say anything, Glenn sighed and went after Shane. Daryl and Rick were already moving deeper into the woods. She stumbled over roots. The underbrush snagged on her jeans. She did her best to walk quietly, and she didn't think she was making all that much noise really, but Daryl shot her a warning glare over his shoulder every few minutes.

"Tracks are gone," said Rick, pausing. He sounded strained.

"Nah," said Daryl, crouching again. "They're faint, but they ain't gone. She came through here."

"How can you tell? I don't see anything. Dirt, grass."

Daryl straightened up. "You want a lesson in tracking or you want to find that girl and get our ass off that interstate?"

They kept going, pressing deeper and deeper into the woods, as the light faded. Jo gave up on keeping pace with them. She let Daryl and Rick vanish among the trees. She wasn't much of a tracker. Daddy never took her hunting. Always said women didn't belong out in the woods, but she'd grown up in them, running wild, running as far as she could, running away, until thoughts of Lee brought her back, every time. She'd never gotten lost before. Even if she was separated from Rick and Daryl, she knew she'd be able to find her way back to the interstate. Her brother was like a magnet. Wherever he was, she always made her way back to him.

Jo found Rick and Daryl standing over a walker. Fresh black blood oozed from the wound in its forehead. Daryl knelt by the dead man and picked up his hand, holding it close to his face. He whipped out his knife and slid it under the walker's thumbnail.

"What are you looking for?" said Rick.

Daryl dropped the walker's hand. "Skin under the fingernails. It fed recently." He pulled back the walker's blackened, decomposing lips. "See, there's flesh caught in its teeth."

"Chipmunk, I hope," muttered Jo. Rick glanced at her as if he'd forgotten she was with them, which he probably had. She wasn't offended. There were other things on his mind. A lost little girl, scared and alone.

"Only one way to know for sure," said Daryl. He didn't waste any time cutting open the walker's stomach, grunting as he drew his knife through skin and muscle, and releasing a putrid smell into the air. Jo gagged. Normally, the sight of blood and guts didn't bother her one bit, but her stomach was already in turmoil from the concussion. She wanted to look away when Daryl plunged his hand into the walker's split gut to yank out it's stomach. She wanted to look away when he sliced open the sack and spread it out to reveal the contents. Instead she searched the bloody mess for a strand of blonde hair or a piece of undigested fabric. What color shirt was Sophia wearing? She couldn't remember. She never really paid the girl much attention.

"This gross bastard had himself a woodchuck for lunch," said Daryl. He wiped his hands on his pants and left a black smear.

"At least we know," said Rick.

"At least we know," agreed Daryl.

Jo was still staring at the gutted walker. _At least we know,_ she thought, but the knowledge wasn't much of anything. They were no closer to finding the girl and the daylight kept slipping away from them. Her stomach flipped. She bent over and a dribble of more yellow bile splashed across her boots. When she straightened up to find both Daryl and Rick looking at her, she wiped her mouth with her sleeve, staring defiantly back at them.

* * *

Carol stood by the guardrail, a lone figure in the dark. From the top of the RV, Jo watched Lori go to her with a bottle of water. Carol didn't turn from the woods and she didn't take the water. After a few minutes, Lori retreated, but Jo kept her eyes on Carol, ready to raise the alarm if the woman tried to slip away.

 _Don't sleep,_ Lee had warned her. She knew she shouldn't. There was no telling, really, how bad the concussion was. Her head didn't ache quite as much. That was something, she supposed. Jo looked away from Carol just long enough to peer down into the RV. Lee was curled up on the bed. She couldn't see much of him through the darkness. He probably wasn't sleeping, either. She heard Carl's cries rising through the open hatch and then Lori's murmured comforts.

Jo looked to the woods. Dead or alive, Sophia was out there somewhere, lost. Someone was climbing up the ladder. She didn't look at Shane, not even when he was standing directly beside her, his arm pressed against her own. "You would've found your way back," he said.

Jo fished the pack of Camel's from her pocket, lit up, but didn't inhale. "She's not me."

"No, guess not," said Shane. "You were always too tough for your own good."

"I had to be." She watched the cigarette burn in her hand, letting it smoke itself. _Doesn't mean I wanted to be,_ she thought, _doesn't mean I wasn't scared, too, every damn day._ She'd never cried over the unfairness of it all. Life was simply what it was.

But now, staring into the darkness, thinking of Sophia wandering out there on her own, Jo felt the crushing weight of the world's injustice. Sophia, Carl, even Lee, they were all children. They didn't deserve any of this. She wasn't certain whether or not she did.

"What's the rule?" she said, flicking her cigarette butt to the road. "Forty-eight hours, right?"

Shane sighed. She finally looked at him just in time to see him rake his hand through his hair. "Given the current state of things, I'd say twenty-four."

Jo nodded. Her watch was still broken, so she didn't know how much time had passed since Sophia went missing, not that it mattered. Given the current state of things, she figured they should've given up hope the moment Sophia ran into the woods by herself.

Carol hadn't moved an inch. Jo unhooked her watch and chucked it out into the night. She watched it fall, glinting in the moonlight, until it hit the pavement with the faintest tinkle of breaking glass. Time didn't exist anymore. There was only this moment, this world, and crying wouldn't make it any more fair. Neither would being angry.

"We're not going to find her," she said. Shane didn't respond. He didn't need to. They both knew how things worked, before and now. Little girls went missing. They rarely ever came back.


End file.
